CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Heffernan, Rose |
|---|---|
| Title | Discourses of Trans Subjectivity and Scottish National Identity as mediated through the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill 2022 |
| Summary | This thesis conducts a critical discourse analysis of media and civil society discourses surrounding the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill 2022. The Reform Bill aimed to make the requirements for changing your legal gender easier, and was the first Scottish Parliament bill ever blocked by the British Parliament. Situated within the context of increasing transphobia and growing fractures between the Scottish and British parliaments, this thesis unpacks how trans subjectivity alongside discourses of Scottish national identity are mediated in discussions surrounding the Reform Bill. This research addresses the fact that much of the literature on Scottish nationalism fails to critically interrogate the racialised and gendered violence embedded in the nation-state system. At the same time, much of the literature on transphobia takes Britian as a unit of analysis and fails to capture the complexities and colonial dynamics between the nations within Britain. By conducting a critical discourse analysis of both media sold in Scotland as well as transcripts from interviews conducted with members of civil society involved in consultations for the Reform Bill, this research unearths the manifest ways the trans subject is imagined alongside discourses of Scottish national identity. By mapping media along locality, political positioning and unionist/nationalist stance, the trans subject was imagined through discourses on subverting borders; temporalities of (European) progressiveness; separating out the trans subject from “regular” Scottish people; speaking for trans people’s (imagined to be liberal) interests; and, contestations over legitimate forms of feminism. The civil society interviews invoked Scottish national identity to make arguments for the Reform Bill in three main ways: transphobia is not part of Scottishness; Scotland is more progressive than England; and Scotland as an underdog in its relationship with the British Parliament. The results indicate an Othering of Scottishness from Englishness and Britishness, the latter two often being used interchangeably. At the same time, the trans subject is seldom included within the concept of the Scottish nation, being separated out both by transphobic actors as well as by trans/feminist actors who make the trans subject a special case or symbol for broader politics (e.g., nationalist goals). This thesis critically engages with the concept of civic nationalism within imaginings of Scottishness to expose how even articulations against British coloniality can reinforce normative gendered and racialised understandings of the Scottish nation. |
| Supervisor | Barát, Erzsébet |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/heffernan_rose.pdf |
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