Fulbright Visiting Scholar Anna M. Kłonkowska will present “I don’t have to be more masculine… to be one of them” as part of the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities (CSMM) Seminar Series on Monday, February 27, at 4 pm in Social and Behavioral Sciences, Room N405.
This event is free and open to the public, but space is limited, so please register today.
Her talk is a comparison of conceptualizations of masculinity between transgender men in Poland and the United States. It is based on a qualitative research project that compared the attitudes of transgender men in Poland and the United States toward dominant notions of masculinity in their respective countries.
Focusing on people who had been recognized as female at birth but self-identify as male, the lecture addresses their ways of defining masculinity, attitudes toward accomplishing socially acknowledged patterns of maleness and re-defining their gender identity. It compares Polish and US transgender men’s efforts to negotiate personal and social identity in light of dominant masculine ideals (e.g., their potential reworking, acceptance and rejection of various elements of those ideals) and explores how alternative notions of masculinity shape different experiences of female-to-male transition in both countries. The research was funded by the Polish – U.S. Fulbright Commission.
Kłonkowska is an assistant professor at the Department of Social Sciences, University of Gdansk. She is a sociologist, psychologist and philosopher; her research interest include: transgender studies (with particular interest in trans masculinities), men’s studies and sociology of the body. She facilitates one of the few support groups for transgender people in Poland and cooperates with the Trans-Fuzja Foundation and Tolerado Gdansk. She is also the editor-in-chief of the sociological journal, Miscellanea Anthropologica et Sociologica. Selected publications include: Masculinity: Assigned– Reassigned–Socially Constructed: The Social Reception of Trans Masculinity in Poland, Men and Masculinities; and Making Transgender Count in Poland: Disciplined Individuals and Circumscribed Populations, Transgender Studies Quarterly.
For more information about the lecture, call the CSMM at (631) 632-7739.
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