JA ES BŪTU SMUKS, ES GRIBĒTU BŪT MEITENE!(‘If I Were Pretty, I Would Like To Be A Girl!’). Debating Transsexualism In The Latvian Parliament

• Authors: JOANNA CHOJNICKA
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The article investigates a debate on the issues of legal recognition of gender which took place in the Latvian Parliament in 2009 and which is considered a rich source of material for a two-fold analysis. As an example of gendered discourse, it shows the differences between female and male MPs’ ways of tackling this uncomfortable subject. As a discourse about gender, which allows one to study the speakers’ arguments and attitudes, it reveals prejudice, lack of knowledge and conservative thinking. The analysis thus illustrates the language and arguments employed in the public sphere when discussing face-threatening, taboo topics.

Keywords

EN

debates; gender; Latvian; parliamentary discourse; sociolinguistics; transsexualism

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Gender Studies
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 179-200

Dates

published

2014-12-01

online

2015-03-25

Contributors

author

JOANNA CHOJNICKA

• University of Konstanz, Universitätsstraße 10, D-78464 Konstanz, Germany

References

• Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
• Chojnicka, Joanna. 2012. Linguistic Markers of Stance in Latvian Parliamentary Debates. Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic Publishing.
• Eckert, Penelope and McConnell-Ginet, Sally. 2003. Language and Gender. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.
• EUFRA = European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. 2008. Homophobia and Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation in the EU Member States: Part I – Legal Analysis. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
• Goffman, Erving. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. New York: Prentice Hall.
• Goffman, Erving. 1967. Interaction Ritual. New York: Pantheon.
• Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Grice, Paul. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
• Sunderland, Jane and Litosseliti, Lia. 2002. “Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis: Theoretical and Empirical Considerations” in Gender Identity and Discourse Analysis. Lia Litosseliti and Jane Sunderland (Eds.). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 1–39.
• Trans-Fuzja. 2014. Gender Recognition in Poland. A Report on Court and Administrative Procedures. Warsaw: Fundacja Trans-Fuzja.
• Weatherall, Ann and Gallois, Cindy. 2003. “Gender and Identity: Representation and Social Action” in The Handbook of Language and Gender. Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (Eds.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 487–508.

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/genst-2015-0013