Christine Goffman Sociology

Stories involving transgender people have been in newspapers, magazines, and tabloids for over fifty five years and have captivated and intrigued the American audience from the start. It all began in 1955 when Christine Jorgensen, born George, publicly announced her gender confirming surgery and began life as a legally recognized women. There was a media frenzy with headlines such as “Bronx GI Becomes a Woman!” and “Bronx ‘Boy’ Is Now A Girl”. But instead of “withdraw[ing] from public attention [Christine’ turned the notoriety to her advantage with a series of lucrative tours on the lecture and nightclub circuit” (McQuiston 1989). “By cultivating the demeanor of a lady and refusing to call herself a homosexual,” Christine was able to remove …show more content…
3). Stigma, while originally ‘stigmata’ and denoted as bodily signs deliberately inflicted to indicate some low moral status, is largely applied to the negative trait or set of traits associated with particular social groups (Xavier “Passing as Stigma Management”). A person that identifies with that social group either voluntarily by self identification or involuntarily by perception or misperception of others constitutes their social identity. Stigma can be further described at the “gap between what a person ought to be, virtual social identity, and what a person actually is, actual social identity” (Ritzer 2013, p. 149). Transgender in particular endure a significant amount of stigmatization. Whether it is through the media “which uses [them] as fodder for entertainment” (Xavier “Passing and Stigma Management”) or society confusing them with gay men or lesbians. It even goes as far as some law enforcement officers using a person’s transgender status as probable cause for “a shakedown or arrest for prostitution” (Xavier “Passing as Stigma …show more content…
Since their stigma is known discredited people are confronted with the problem of managing the tension caused by that knowledge during social contracts with ‘normals’ (Goffman 1963). Transgender people who have disclosed their transgender status fall into this category and are forced to navigate invasive and inappropriate questions about their personal history, what surgeries they have or have not had, and intense discrimination in some cases. Tactics to deal with the awkward, difficult or even downright hostile social interactions include attempts to “make light of the situation, appearance manipulation, and the careful following of a sometimes elaborate disclosure etiquette” (Xavier “Passing as Stigma Management”). Goffman called this kind of stigma management as tension management. Some within the transgender community prefer not to endure this humiliation and prefer to live their lives privately in what is commonly referred to as “stealth” in the transgender