Abstract:
The larger study of “Transgender Stress and Resilience Across Sociopolitical Context” (the SPC study) was created in order to counter the persistent othering of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people and center TGD people and experience within health research practices. Designed by trans scholars in fields of psychology and anthropology, the SPC was developed in order to create health research that speaks directly toward the lived experiences of TGD people and the physiological effects of stress and discrimination on TGD people’s health and well-being. Thus far, critical rhetorical research has largely remained uninvolved in this level of health research, and has yet to fully engage with the rhetorical discourses and systems of knowledge construction and resistance within large-scale, interdisciplinary health practices.Through the theoretical application of autoethnography, rhetoric of the body, and narrative to the different elements of the SPC first wave data and data collection processes, this dissertation constructs three in-depth case studies of critical rhetoric within the larger SPC study: 1) Critical autoethnographic reflection of my work in TGD critical rhetorical studies, 2) Physiological and ideological bodies within biomarker data collection, and 3) Negotiation of personal gender identity within coming out narratives. Each of these case studies deals with the negotiation between the physiological body and lived experiences, and the ideological and social constructions of gender. Within the SPC study, critical rhetoric is situated within the systems of stress and resilience as they play out across the bodies of participants, researchers, and the ideological conceptualizations of gender identity and expression. This dissertation focuses on the critical rhetorical aspects of material and ideological bodies and identity construction within resistive health research practices, looking at the ways in which critical rhetoric functions on the whole within health discourses of gender identity, expression, and performance with physiological consequences of sociopolitical context. Focusing on the development and initial implementation of the SPC study, this dissertation analyzes researcher reflexivity, the biomarker collection processes, and initial participant interviews in order to investigate critical rhetorical discourse in longitudinal, interdisciplinary, big-data health studies.
