The Lived Experience of Individuation in Six Gender Variant People

Abstract

This study is an inquiry into the development, imagination, and embodiment of gender in six people who have identified themselves as gender variant in some way. Gender variant means gender identities which are outside cultural norms at various levels of social interaction. This study is focused within the context of the Western cultural matrix and provides a phenomenological description of the lived experience of individuation in the participants. Information from two hour-long digitally recorded and transcribed interviews with each participant is used to contribute to a composite narrative of developmental themes and to explore the role of imagination and embodiment in gender expression in the process of individuation. Individuation means the lifelong process of aligning conscious and unconscious aspects of self for a sense of wholeness and authentic self-expression in ways that may challenge collective expectations and may be personally disturbing when they disrupt personal schema about the world and self or may provide meaning and a sense of greater purpose. Analysis based on the interviews yields answers to the central questions about gender variance and individuation in two primary categories: implicit personal gender identity that develops over time as an aspect of a felt sense of authentic self in the world; and explicit gender identity that becomes more complex within the cultural matrix through dynamic interactions with it.