Transgender Worlds and Centrality of Human Agency

Abstract

The paper explores the centrality of human agency in the lives of transgender individuals in context of the two trans protagonists, Captain Macho and Teddy of transgender narratives, namely, Masks of a Superhero and Dean and Teddy respectively from the anthology entitled The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard edited by trans-activists and playwrights, Tom Léger and Riley MacLeod. The Collection that bagged the Lambda Literary Award 2013 in the Transgender Fiction Award category consists of stories by twenty-eight authors from North America that shed light on the vicissitudes and complexities of the transgender spectrum. The paper explores a trans-person’s agential capacity in context of the story, Dean and Teddy whose trans-protagonist Teddy opens up newer possibilities of sexual and gender identity as well as of transsituated discourses. It analyses the movement in Teddy’s perceptions and experiences and trans-subjectivity through the lens of feminist theory, queer theory and trans-identity/transgender theory. In the process, the paper tries to find answers to questions such as: Is Teddy able to navigate his/her unique identity while being a part of a gender-variant group that has its own fixed, conventional and often stifling rules and norms? If and how Teddy is able to find a way to personal empowerment and selfhood through the intersections of his/her multiple oppressed social identity not only in terms of his/her socially defined and enforced roles but also in terms of his/her self-constructed and embodied aspects of identity?

The paper attempts to investigate the aspect of agency that is, the characteristics and capabilities of the trans-protagonist, Captain Macho (known as Annie post-transition) of the story, Masks of a Superhero, in perceiving, interpreting and affecting the world around him. It analyses Captain Macho’s emotional and psychological complexity, and the dilemmas and contradictions that s/he faces in her/his dual and seemingly contradictory identitiesas an individualist and a collectivist.