Trans youth embodiment and distress

What is it about?

This article focuses on self-harm and distress among transgender and gender diverse youth. It think critically about the way distress is understood, and what is taken for granted about the embodied distress of trans and gender diverse youth. The concept of queer failure is used to open up for thinking about what counts as success and failure in relation to young people who do not conform to binary gender norms.

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Why is it important?

This work offers important thinking in two respects: 1) Self-harm is often understood as a kind of failure, and this stigmatises people who self-harm. Thinking critically about (queering) failure helps to destigmatise those who self-harm. 2) Trans youth are often represented in ways that suggest inevitable distress, and very likely raise the possibilities of self-harm and suicidality. The present article points to the problems inherent in this sense of inevitability.