Voices for Transition: A Study on the Path of Gender Reassignment in Public Self-Narratives

Etemadifard, Seyed Mahdi; Najmi, Ala

doi:10.22054/qjss.2025.89770.2934

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Seyed Mahdi Etemadifard ¹
Ala Najmi ²

¹ Associate Professor of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

² PhD Candidate in Theoretical-Cultural Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

10.22054/qjss.2025.89770.2934

Abstract

In contemporary Iran, transgender life is caught in a paradoxical state of “legal acceptance” and “social exclusion.” The dominance of the medical-legal perspective has created a profound gap between “formal knowledge” (based on pathology) and “lived experience.” Thus, this research analyzes the social construction of the transition process within this gap to understand how social actors narrate and experience this path. Conducted within the framework of critical constructivism, the study employs a two-phase qualitative methodology: reflexive thematic analysis of over 100 hours of Persian podcasts and participatory ethnography in Isfahan based on 80 hours of in-depth interviews with 15 transgender individuals and 5 specialists. Findings indicate that while public self-narratives formulate transition in a linear, five-stage model (disruption, translation and naming, institutional bargaining, temporary accommodation, re-creation), field evidence reveals lived reality as continuous structural suspension. Finally, drawing on critical symbolic interactionism, the study argues that this linear model is a symbolic struggle by the subject to impose order on chaos and achieve “legibility”- an effort that, paradoxically, leads to the reproduction of the linear logic desired by formal institutions.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Sociology

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Voices for Transition: A Study on the Path of Gender Reassignment in Public Self-Narratives

References

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Volume 32, Issue 108 - Serial Number 108February 2025Pages 219-252

Volume 32, Issue 108 - Serial Number 108
February 2025
Pages 219-252