Living the Opposite Sex

Front matter

aan 2 2 f dii vie ah nnd ET Culture and Socia "n pey |

Christoph Imhof Living the Opposite Sex

Culture and Social Practice

Contents

List of abbreviations . 2... ne. reete ne od ea sn a 9 Introduction... i e oer HR er in hing 1 Nile c" nm 2] Further. notes. hoben 28

Chapter 1. Trans research: Of gender ambiguity, gender dysphoria 11 Gender non-conforming people from an anthropological perspective

A/few:selected Cases 4... ctore tede ra ti ORE NE de Ee e a 33 13 The situation in Spain and Andalusia: From criminalisation to inclusion

4.2 »Schopl’and’education..: zone re REN IE In 112 4:47 SSEXWOLK sc otis sesto A la 118 2:6. Being OM ployed emi ocn th 009 rone ette En te pig Teese pata eget 142 kT "Withiout job. en e eain eS ME See Hed 143 48 -Conclüding remarks eiii en EL 146 53. ‘Whofirst:to:tell a. 45i ett LE eo EO hae cca Senats 168 5.5. Coneluding.remarks: 3... eei ret c ret re rate p lehnen 174 5.6» SUMMA A A A a e aa e a sees 175 6:4- Someurther thoughts... iria do 201 DISCUSSION: 0: basa 203 References... oH a MEM HR ER vex CERT de 213

Acknowledgements

This book is based on my dissertation at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Bern.

First and foremost, I am deeply grateful to my research partners in the field, who were willing to share with me insights into their life worlds and who provided the material and spice for the PhD-thesis. I would also like to thank my supervisor Prof. Dr. Heinzpeter Znoj from the Institute of Social Anthropology of the University of Bern for his long-term support, his critical encouragements and his ongoing interest in my research project. In addition, my thanks go out to Prof. Dr. Andrea Maihofer from the specialist field of Gender Studies at the University of Basel, who agreed to become my second examiner. Dr. Maihofer provided me with valuable input by discussing part of my paper with me. I am also sincerely grateful to the PhD students at the Doctoral Colloquium in Social Anthropology at the University of Bern for their ongoing critical and supportive comments on my paper in progress. I would also like to thank the participants, the programme management and the programme committee of the Graduate School Gender Studies at the University of Bern for welcoming me onto their interdisciplinary PhD-programme, and for the inspiring discussion during one of the annually held symposiums from which I was able to benefit enormously. Spending time in the field (especially the second field research period) and writing down the PhD-thesis were sometimes a balancing act between meeting my work obligations and progressing with the thesis. I would also like to thank the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, School of Social Work, especially the Institute of Integration and Participation, for granting me leave to complete this research project. I am grateful to Monty Sufrin, who was helpful in the final phase of my endeavour by editing the manuscript.

Because this research spans many years, many people have been involved, at different times. Thus, my heartfelt thanks go to all those persons and friends who supported me in the field and at home, who enabled contacts, spent time with me, gave me feedback, accompanied and motivated me in both better and more difficult times. A very special thank you goes to Gionatan Zappola, to José Oropesa and to my late mother Erika Imhof-Bieri.

List of abbreviations

ATA BAG

DNI DSM

FtM GID HIV IAS

ICD

ILGA

Asociación de Transexuales de Andalucía Sylvia Rivera

Federal Office of Public Health, Switzerland (Bundesamt für Gesundheit, Schweiz)

Documento Nacional de Identidad (National identity card)

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association)

Female-to-male trans person

Gender Identity Disorder

Human immunodeficiency virus

International Aids Society

International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (WHO)

International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association

IU-CA Izquierda Unida LGBT+ Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and more

MtF PP PSOE SAS STI TVE UGT UTIG

WHO

Male-to-female trans person

Partido Popular (Popular Party)

Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol (Spanish Socialist Workers Party) Servicio Andaluz de Salud (Andalusian Health Service)

Sexually transmitted infections

Televisión Española

Unión General de Trabajadores (General Workers Union)

Unidad de Trastornos de la Identidad de Género / Unidad de Transexualidad e Identidad de Género

World Health Organisation

WPATH World Professional Association of Transgender Health

“[...] de no sera ser” (Diego, 2015)"

This work concerns individuals in Andalusia who do not fit the sex and gender assigned to them at birth. Moreover and more generally, it is about past and contemporary society, reflected through the experiences, memories, activities, and daily life of these individuals and their social environment. Andalusia is the southernmost autonomous community in Spain, bordering the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. This region was of special interest to European and North American anthropologists in the second half of the 20h century, in conjunction with the anthropological interest in Mediterranean societies (cf. Pitt-Rivers 1971). Beginning around the 1950s, a Mediterranean Anthropology emerged as a subdiscipline of Social Anthropology (Giordano 2012). Ecological and societal common features were emphasised to define a culture area that encompassed the societies bordering the Mediterranean Sea (cf. Davis 1977). A concept of honour and shame linked to sexuality and gender emerged as a central topic by these anthropologists, depicting a society structured by clearly defined concepts of men and women, of manliness and femaleness (cf. Blok 1982; Brandes 1981; Gilmore 1990; Giordano 2001; Peristiany 1966).

As a marker of his virility, the ideal Andalusian man was described as tough, strong, aggressive, sober, free, and responsible for his family. "Ihe quintessence of manliness is fearlessness, readiness to defend one's own pride and that of one's family" (Pitt-Rivers 1971: 89). He was expected to demonstrate a masculinity which is physically situated in the sexual organs, specifically the testicles, which appears in expressions like tener cojones (literally *to have balls", signifying to have courage). "To be masculine is to have cojones (testicles) [...]" (Pitt-Rivers 1971: 90). The Andalusian man was typified as someone who constantly had to reaffirm his virility to guard his honour and the honour of the family, which was threatened by the sexuality of his wife (and daughters). This threat included fear of feminisation if he could not accomplish and maintain his manly role. Consequently, he constantly had to express his homophobia as well. His honour (and that of the family) depended

1 “From not to be to be.” (Diego, 2015)

on the (sexual) conduct of his wife and unmarried daughters. Therefore, the Andalusian man was typified as “[u]n hombre valiente, autónomo, capaz de defenderse a sí mismo y defender lo que es suyo, en el ámbito de actuación que le es propio por excelencia, la calle, lo público” (Mozo González and Tena Díaz 2003: 163).?

The same corpus of social anthropological literature put the Andalusian woman (as a representative of Mediterranean culture) on the other side of the scale. To quote Pitt-Rivers again: “The male social personality has been related to the conception of manliness. The feminine counterpart of the conception, which expresses the essence of womanhood, is vergüenza, or shame” (1971: 112). She had to be faithful and was bound to the house and its surroundings.

Una mujer casta, un modelo de casada obesa, que no ha oído hablar de emancipación, educación o liberación sexual, recatada en sus comportamientos, vestida con ropas oscuras para ocultar su cuerpo, y que, en definitiva, manifiesta con el decoro el valor de su pureza sexual, su 'vergüenza', que constituye la base de la posición moral de su familia en esta sociedad tradicional. (Mozo González and Tena Díaz 2003: 164)?

Embedded in an idea of purity and chastity, she had to conserve her virginity, following the footsteps of the Virgin Mary. This “discovery” or ‘construction (depending on the viewpoint) of a Mediterranean culture area with its culture-specific characteristics was widely debated and critisised (for earlier critics see Boissevain 1979; Goddard et al. 1994; Llobera 1986; Pina-Cabral 1989). Mozo González and Tena Díaz (2003) criticise that Mediterranean anthropology put forward the issue that Andalusia (like the rest of the societies bordering the Mediterranean Sea) could be characterised by a rigid and accentuated separation of the sexes, thus, labelling these societies as the others', as more traditional and less developed than the anthropologists' countries of origin, where feminist movements were starting to question gender roles and gender hierarchies.

Consequently, (concerning gender roles and gender images) in the second half of the 20" century anthropologists wrote about machismo and faithful, pure women, thus, depicting a chauvinistic and patriarchal society. The texts not only sexualised men and women in different ways, but also took heterosexuality as the

2 “A brave, autonomous man, capable of defending himself and those he is responsible for, in “the street” in public, which is his field of action [own transl.]" (Mozo González and Tena Díaz 2003: 163).

3 "A chaste woman, faithful to marriage, who has not heard of emancipation, education or sexual liberation, demure in her behaviour, dressed in dark clothes to conceal her body, and who, ultimately, manifests with her decency the value of her sexual purity, her 'shame' that constitutes the basis of her family's moral position in this 'traditional' society [own transl.]" (Mozo González and Tena Díaz 2003: 164).

natural form of relationships, with sexual intercourse as its utmost expression (Mozo González and Tena Díaz 2003).

At the same time, these ethnographies depicted a sexually seductive Andalusian woman, whom, to maintain honour, the father or husband had to control. The image of the tempting and disloyal woman was a continuation of the notion of the sexes 'found' by the romantic travellers (viajeros románticos) in the 19th century, who had already contributed to a creation of topics about men and women, and which, according to Mozo Gonzalez and Tena Diaz (2003), contributed to an exotic image of Andalusia. The travel literature of the 19h century focussed on marginalised groups, such as bandits, smugglers, and attractive, unemployed men, on drinkers with an inclination to aggression, bullfighters, gypsies, lustful female dancers or wage-earning cigar-makers. This literature characterised Andalusian men as wild, cruel and indolent, and the women as endowed with a passionate sexuality (e.g. the image of Carmen by Mérimée).

In rare cases, the travel literature of the 19h century mentioned women who were courageous and behaved like medio-hombres, and men with feminine behaviour who behaved like medio-mujeres. In the texts of the early 'Mediterranean anthropologists' the only references to non-normative gender roles or non-normative sexual desire (if any) were linked to homosexuality. However, this happened only in an indirect way. Mozo González and Tena Díaz (2003) note that homosexuals did not appear as authentic social subjects in these ethnographies. Unlike other informants who could be heard in the texts, homosexuals were just talked about. The same authors conclude that in this genre of writing, homosexuality appears as a phantasmagorical nightmare for the Andalusian men, depicted as something marginal, negatively connoted and vehemently rejected. Homosexuality exists, but the homosexuals are invisible. Mozo González and Tena Díaz (2003) criticise writing about men and women in this way, because it portrays Andalusia as a society quite closed to sexual plurality, and where the heterosexist order and homophobia are always present. This reaffirms its traditional character.

The criticism is appropriate because this representation of Andalusian men and women served to distinguish between ‘traditional’ Mediterranean countries and the ‘modern’ countries of the mostly Anglo-Saxon anthropologists (cf. Goddard et al. 1994). However, on one hand, these descriptions matched the zeitgeist of anthropological academic work, and on the other, the political-ideological situation in Spain in the middle decades of the 20h not a key issue in anthropological work and questioned the authors' professional century. To write about homosexuality was academic career. Anthropologists interested in writing about homosexuality were suspected of being homosexuals themselves and, thus, of lacking the necessary objectivism necessary for scientific research, or of becoming too entangled with the research subjects. Furthermore, it was hardly a topic to be financially supported by funding agencies (Lewin and Leap 1996).

The gender images represented were also congruent with the political-ideological situation in Spain in the middle of the 20h century under the dictatorship of Franco, which lasted from 1939 until his death in 1975. These decades were characterised by a consolidation of rigid rules of sexual behaviour and repression of sexuality in the service of a catholic morality, which coincided with Franco's policy and ideology (Nieto 2011). Sexuality was meant exclusively for the purpose of procreation; the nuclear family was highly valued; and the woman's role was to complete the man. Against this background, 'homosexuals' were perceived as a danger.

Today, approximately fifty years later, Spanish society presents itself very differently. One of my interlocutors, Valentín, a social worker who does prevention work for sex workers in Seville, states: *Mmh, la sociedad española está cambiando muchísima. ;Eh? Desde que se murió el dictador, está en continuo cambio." (Valentín, 2003)*

After Francos dictatorship ended, Spain leapt through a transition into democracy and into the European Community. Gender equality is now on the political agenda, as in many other ‘modern’ European countries, and regarding marriage equality, Spain legally recognised marriage between same sex couples (including the right of adoption) as early as 2005, during the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (cf. Jefatura del Estado 2005). Ban states that “[i]n 2004, after eight years in opposition, the Socialist Party had become one of the most progressive center-left parties in the world on gender parity, gay rights, the environment, and other postmaterial policy issues [...]” (Ban 2016: 59). Regarding respect for human rights, full equality and non-discrimination, the ILGA-Europe, in their ranking of 49 countries, rates Spain in seventh place (with 70.19%). In comparison, Switzerland is rated at 33.15%, and is put 25h (ILGA-Europe 2016). As for the visibility of homosexuals, Madrid, the capital of Spain, has become one of the top gay destinations in the world.?

However, this does not mean that homophobia has been erased. On the International AIDSImpact Conference on HIV/Aids in Barcelona in 2013, one of the Spanish keynote speakers at the opening session expressed his concern that homophobia in Spain was still a very troubling issue in daily life. He referred to a recent incident, among others, where a gay man died in a violent confrontation with the local police (Mossos d’Esquadra) in Barcelona (personal note). In addition, Valentín, the social worker mentioned above, notes a prevailing rejection of homosexuals, despite increased tolerance due to better information and legalisation. Often, this rejection manifests itself in the form of making fun of them.

4 "Ehm, Spanish society is changing a lot. Ever since the dictator died, it is in constant change.” (Valentín, 2003) 5 See e.g. URL: http://www.madridorgullo.com/en/worldpride/madrid/madridlgtb

Thus, thinking in traditional gender roles is not easily extinguished, despite all the politically progressive changes towards non-discrimination, equity and diversity. During my last field research trip for example, I told the male landlord where I was staying that I had cleaned the refrigerator and had to throw quite a few mouldy things away. He responded: “Esta [the fridge] es cosa de mujer"

, thus rejecting any responsibility. This evoked images of traditional gender roles, where a woman's work is bound to housekeeping, and to the private sphere, while men had their obligations in the public sphere. The metaphor of ‘not having balls’ (to offend somebody and question his authority) has endured the decades as well. One of my research partners, Anabel, a trans woman, working as a bus driver told of an incident with a passenger a few years ago. It was during the Easter week (Semana Santa) when there was a special bus schedule, due to the many religious processions taking place in the city during that week. While driving, Anabel was speaking to a newly arrived passenger who needed information about the changed schedule. An elderly man in the back ofthe bus, irritated by their ongoing talk, started to protest in a loud voice. Although Anabel asked him to be quiet, he continued to yell at her. This distracted her from driving. She told him to get off at the next stop if he was not willing to be quiet. He started to insult her: “Me dice: '¡Tú no tienes cojones” Y yo le contesté: (Anabel, 2013)”

This insult was intended to reduce Anabel to a state of ‘not having balls’, the

7»

"No, que no tengo, caballero’. Y él me dijo:'Porque te lo han cortado.

very metaphor referred to above. Indeed, los cojones are not just a biological quality of maleness, but are also linked to social reputation: “[...] he has no cojones, that is to say that he is lacking in the full social personality of an adult male, and is a person who can be overridden with impunity" (Pitt-Rivers 1971: 90-91). However, Anabel did not want to be 'overridden with impunity'. Now really upset, she ordered him to get off at the next bus stop, which he refused to do. She called the police, but they did not force the man to leave. He had paid for his ticket, they argued. After finishing her daily work, she reported him to the police and the case had to be judged in court. Anabel, who is convinced that people look at trans persons in a stereotypical way and laugh at them (which always upsets her) reflected on her reaction: “Yo lo que buscaba que el tío este le pusieron claro que no puede ir así por la vida, y ya está." (Anabel, 2013)

h century have left their mark as well. Accord-

The romantic travellers of the 19* ing to Mozo González and Tena Díaz (2003) their techniques of representation (e.g.

on the basis of travel literature) were successful in constructing ‘the other’, which

6 “The fridge is a woman's thing"

7 “He says: ‘You have no balls’! | replied: ‘No, I really don't have them, Sir. And he said: ‘Because they cut them off’. (Anabel, 2013) 8 “All | wanted was for them to make it clear to this guy that he could not go on that way in life, and that's it" (Anabel, 2013)

they compare with Edward W. Said's concept of Orientalism. Said viewed 'Orientalis

[...] as a Western discourse that essentialises the Muslim world in pejorative ways, one intimately entwined with imposition of imperial power and offering ideological justifications for it. (Ansari 2013: 3)

For Andalusia, Mozo González and Tena Díaz (2003) note that part of the Andalusian people accepted (even essentialised) the images depicted by these educational travellers of the 1912 century as ‘natural’ markers of their collective identity. This might partly explain why pictures of folkloric elements, such as passionate women dancing flamenco, are used by travel agencies, promising to encounter the ‘true’ Andalusia, or why a contemporary travel guide to Spain describes Seville, the capital of Andalusia, as “[...] home of flamenco and all the clichés of southern Spain" (Baskett et al. 2015: 5). Some of my informants are quite unperturbed about accepting these images although they fail in actually performing them. Two of the research partners joked that they could neither sing, nor dance flamenco.

It might have been the “queering of such ‘true’ Andalusian traits through trans individuals which awakened my interest to learn more about their life-worlds. It was towards the end of the 1990s when I first saw Imelda performing in a gay night bar in Seville. Every Sunday night, there was a show, where different actors, mostly drag queens, performed a playback show. Most of them imitated modern pop songs. Imelda, a trans woman, interpreted songs by Isabel Pantoja only.

During this time, la Pantoja was a respected contemporary singer of coplas. Coplas are narrative ballad-like songs, full of emotion, telling stories of love and hope, of loss and suffering, and of devotion to the homeland. They treat issues of ordinary life mostly, and are associated with Southern Spain, but are famous all over the country (cf. Sieburth 2014). In the times of Franco, they were glorified as the expression of Spanish culture, but lost popularity after Franco's death, because many people related them to Franco's regime. Nowadays, coplas have reclaimed their popularity. Imelda appeared in wonderful costumes which she sewed herself (as I later learned) and imitated the songs in a deeply emotional manner, her whole body and face expressing the pain and the suffering of the song, her eyes looking far away. When the song ended, she entered into a joking, entertaining conversation with the audience, and charmed the room with her self-confident appearance. Imelda's queer performance and the audience's enthusiastic reception were symbolically laden. In slipping into the role of la Pantoja, whose fame was heightened by the fact that she had been married to a torero killed in a bullfight, a symbol of Spanish identity that can hardly be matched, Imelda represented the essence of the modern Andalusian woman, but strongly tied to traditions. In short, Imelda, who was born in a male body, represented in her shows one of the highly adored women in Spain.

In contrast to the rather milieu-specific ambiance in which Imelda was performing, talk shows in television served as a popular place where trans women appeared before the public. However, unlike Imelda, the trans women who participated in talk shows often represented the typical transsexual woman many people have in their minds: showing accentuated feminine sexual characteristics, such as a stately-sized bosom, enlarged lips, and a readiness to entertain. Entertainment, while stereotyping trans people, seemed to be the purpose of these talk shows.

Thus sensitised, I saw or heard about further trans persons and developed a growing interest to explore the life worlds of these people in this region of Europe. What was it like for a person, biologically assigned to one sex but aiming to be acknowledged as the other, to live in a society that had been represented as being structured in a rigid gender system? Where it was said that a real man must have cojones (balls) and be the guardian of the family, and where women were once said to be sensual and chaste at the same time? What were the consequences a person faced on the individual, familial, and societal level in removing or adding testicles (symbolically speaking)? What were the available strategies these people used to cope with their sex/gender non-conformity and how did legal and societal transformations affect these strategies? How did inclusion or exclusion correlate with medical practice? Moreover, was it possible to detect dominant contemporary gender models and societal norms in unveiling the everyday life of people who seemingly act against hetero-normative expectations?

Hence, this research attempts to look at contemporary notions of the sexes by unveiling societal challenges confronting trans people in Andalusia, which was represented in earlier years as marked by a strong heteronormative sex/gender order and rigid characteristics concerning maleness and femaleness. Here, I start from the assumption that modes of being that diverge from the norm provoke individual, familial and societal points of friction. Particularly among minorities, these points of friction do not comply with familial and societal expectations. Trans people interfere with and challenge a purported natural order by not accepting their assigned biological sex. To gain insight into the life-worlds oftrans people in Southern Spain, and to analyse their individual, familial and societal situation reflects not only the individual, but in the broadest sense societal traits in general. Embedding the subject into the structures of its social and political environment, into the structures of medicine, law, economy and spirituality, it draws on Goffmar's idea about the explanatory power of interactions: Although “[...] it is individual actors who contribute the ultimate materials [...]” (Goffman 2005: 2) it is not only about people and their situation, but also (or rather) about the situations and their people (cf. Uzarewicz 2011). Furthermore, Andalusia is not an isolated province, but is embedded in the nation state and the European Community. In this sense, the study intends to combine individual (local) experiences with these wider structures as well. Thus, the 'trans' perspective should reveal dynamics (be they oppressive or

T supportive) that are otherwise less (or not at all) visible, and contribute to an understanding of past and contemporary challenges, not least for contemporary western society in general.

Having outlined these aspects and intentions, this introductory chapter continues with explanations of the methodology and theoretical framework before discussing terminology. It concludes with an overview of the structure of this work.

Methodological and theoretical framework Methods and data collection

This study is an ethnologically-oriented, qualitative piece of research, and follows the principles of Grounded Theory (cf. Strauss 1998; Strauss and Corbin 1996). One of the strengths of Grounded Theory is its refusal to separate data gathering and data analysis as a strictly chronological process (i.e. first data gathering, then data analysis), but rather emphasises the on-going ties between both processes to finally develop its own theory. When Grounded Theory is understood as encompassing the whole research process (from data collection to the written text), then there is an ongoing process between data collection, data analysis and final product (see illustration 1.1).

Illustration 1.1. On-going process between data collection, data analysis and theory building/final product

I conducted field research and collected data during two research periods which were rather far apart: an extended field trip in 2003, where the first results emerged, and several research trips between 2013 and 2015, where I intended to meet former and new informants and concentrate on the changes that had happened during this decade.

During summer to autumn 2003, I spent several months in the field. Geographically, I started with and focussed on the urban area of Seville, where I initially made contact with my first informants. Through the unveiling of part of their networks, and growing information, I extended the geographical focus to other parts of Andalusia. One was Malaga as a further urban metropole, where some of my informants, aspiring for sex reassignment, received medical assistance. Due to the domicile or summer holiday stays of some of my informants, or festivities, the focus also included suburban, rural and coastal regions. This research period turned out to be very valuable in knowledge production, and nerve-racking at the same time. The search for interlocutors (initially through persons of trust), the establishment of contact, and the accessibility of potential research partners was time-consuming and required persistence and patience. Nevertheless, valuable contacts developed and with seven out ofthe dozen or so trans persons I met (and with whom I entered into informal conversations), I conducted in-depth interviews which I was allowed to record. Six of them were male-to-female trans persons (MtE), and one female-to-male (FtM). During this research period, FtMs were hard to reach. A staff member of Colega (a gay and lesbian association in the city) enabled the meeting with the latter (who was accompanied by his girl-friend and her little daughter). The association also provided a quiet room for the interview.

Overall, the research partners I met in 2003 gave me valuable insights into their lifeworlds, which provided me with a broad picture ofthe general situation. From a methodological point of view, this explorative research trip confirmed "[t]he validity, meaningfulness, and insights generated from qualitative inquiry [which] have more to do with the information richness of the cases selected [...] than with sample size" (Patton 2002: 245). Patton argues: “While one cannot generalize from single cases or very small samples, one can learn from them - and learn a great deal" (2002: 46). Furthermore it “[...] can tell you something important about what's going on in society" (2002: 46). To look at a ‘case’ as an independent examination unit is one of the central characteristics of Grounded Theory as well. Methodologically, a 'case in Grounded Theory is understood as an autonomous entity with a story. This can be a person, a family, an institution, or a social context (cf. Hildenbrand's introductory remarks in Strauss 1998).

Two visits to the hospital in Malaga, where transsexual people from Andalusia were officially referred to in 2003, allowed me to meet and interview one of the surgeons for sex reassignment surgery. At this time, Andalusia and the Extremadura were Spain's only two autonomous communities that had integrated the sex reassignment process into their Public Health system, which covered the costs (see Chapter 1).

Furthermore, I established contact with two staff members of an NGO (Médicos del Mundo), who visited the sex work venue once a week where some of my informants worked as transsexual sex workers in the inner city. These two social workers arrived in a camper that served as a mobile information and counselling centre, mainly regarding HIV and STI (sexually transmitted infections) prevention work.

To get to know as broad a diversity of lifeworlds of trans people as possible, I intended to meet people with diverse socio-demographic and personal backgrounds: age; MtF; FtM; different intentions and experiences concerning surgical interventions, different milieus, and whatever turns out as characteristic of and enriching for my research. In this sense, according to the principles of Grounded Theory, by a theoretical sampling (for the production of comparisons) I aimed to achieve a theoretical saturation, which means that additional empirical data and their analysis would not alter the final product in a substantial manner (cf. Charmaz 2006; Strauss 1998; Strauss and Corbin 1996; Strübing 2014).

Qualitative data collection consisted on one hand of recorded semi-structured interviews (when allowed, I videotaped the interview), participant observation and many informal conversations. On the other hand, document analyses and Internet research were further tools I relied on. Furthermore, I kept a field research diary. After a first data collection and the transcription of the interviews, I analysed the material by coding, starting with open coding to work out preliminary categories and to make first comparisons (for a more detailed description of the coding process cf. Charmaz 2006; Strauss 1998; Strübing 2014). This early analysis provided primary insights into the research object, revealed missing aspects and opened new questions. Although I was granted with rich insights of different lifeworlds and their societal embedding during this initial field research, there remained some hidden aspects. I knew of some elderly trans persons, from whom I hoped to learn more about the situation during the dictatorship of Franco. I tried to contact them by trusted third parties, but they could not be convinced to meet me. This reflects once again one of the methodical challenges of anthropological fieldwork: to build up trust, which takes time. I also wished to speak to some more FtM, but this scene was quite invisible at that time. And last but not least, I did not meet trans persons who could talk about their experiences after sex reassignment surgery. However, four of my informants I met in 2003 were on the hospital’s waiting list for genital sex reassignment and were waiting impatiently to be called in for surgery.