ARTICULATING BODIES IN TAPESTRIES OF SPACE: MAPPING ETHNOGRAPHIES OF TRANS SOCIAL AND POLITICAL COALITIONS IN WASHINGTON, DC

In this dissertation I explore how transgender, transsexual and other gender non-conforming subjects organize socially and politically as members of immensely diverse and discontinuous `trans coalitions' in Washington, D.C. This ethnography, utilizing corporeally-anchored community map-making and interview data with over 100 trans-spectrum persons, attends to how emerging disjunctures between law, policy and lived experience--as expressed through the regulation of bodies in space--impact and highlight structural inequalities across trans-spectrum identities and practices. Ultimately, this project shifts a static view of a singular homogenous trans community into a politically and socio-economically-anchored discussion of trans-spectrum experiences, cross cut by issues of class, race, and modalities of gender expression, all within the physical, social and political arenas of Washington, D.C.