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The study of self-narratives thus far has sought to discern the internal structures of the stories people tell to give meaning to themselves. This approach, however, neglects the interactive processes through which self-narratives are constructed. By studying preoperative transsexuals, who are preparing for a radical identity change, one can observe the interactive processes through which stories are used to construct a new self. Based on participant observation in a transgender support group, in-depth interviews, and analysis of written materials, the present study shows how transsexuals collaborated, through modeling, guiding, selective affirming, and tactful blindness, to fashion biographical stories that defined into existence a differently-gendered "true self." It also shows how dominant gender ideologies provided resources for fashioning plausible self-narratives.
Stories are like containers that hold us together; they give us a sense of coherence and continuity. By telling what happened to us once upon a time, we make sense of who we are today. To fashion a biographical story imposes a comforting order on our experience, but how do we arrive at stories that feel right, that point to authentic selfhood? One way to find out is to examine how people create new self-narratives to support a radical change in identity. We might find, as Gergen and Gergen (1983:266) have suggested, that stories are not simply told about a preexisting self but that stories, and their collective creation, bring phenomenologically real "true selves" into being.
Transsexuals provide an intriguing opportunity to study this process of self-construction. The desired identity change is indeed radical: from one gender to another. Typically transsexuals, like those described here, believe they were born in wrong-sexed bodies and want to remedy the mistake, eventually through surgery. The process entails relearning how to do gender, down to the smallest details of self-presentation. The process is also anguishing, in that transsexuals often face rejection from family and friends. In addition, there are the problems of finding ways to pay for therapy, electrolysis, hormone treatments, and surgery. To be willing to endure this process, one must believe firmly that the "true self" demands it.
We already know a great deal about how transsexuals manage stigma (Feinbloom 1976; Kando 1973) and how they learn to do gender differently (Garfinkel 1967; Kessler and McKenna 1978)....