An Analysis of Trans-Inclusionary and Trans-Exclusionary Discourse

Abstract

[Abstract] In the past century, with the boom of the advocacy for gender equality, transgender individuals have also pushed for their rights, although they have faced—and still do—some animosity. This dissertation explores how the English language is used by transgender people and trans allies on the one hand and by gender-critical (GC) feminists—who have variedly negative views on transgender identities—on the other. In the past few decades of the 20th century, discourse analysis appeared and branched into three main approaches. The last of these approaches, that is, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), utilises a mixed methodology in which linguistic, textual and social elements are considered. The present study has been carried out by following CDA and, more particularly, Fairclough’s approach to it, which involves looking into different linguistic features through the glass of socio-historical context. Fairclough’s model emphasises the division of the three levels present in CDA: the textual dimension, the discursive dimension and the social dimension. This dissertation studies thirty-two essays posted on online blogs in the past 6 years: sixteen have been written by trans-inclusive feminists and activists and the other sixteen have been posted by GC radical feminists. This dissertation shows, by scrutinising the published material in as much detail as a work of this magnitude and kind allows, how the use and repetition of certain terms and some linguistic subtleties has a very real and relevant ideological purpose. To this end, I have focused on elements such as compounding, deixis and connectors, emotional appeals, modal verbs and private verbs, among others. This analysis has proven my initial hypothesis that linguistic and textual elements are being used for the writers’ own profit, thus influencing the readership