1998 Where Love Lives

- Eickers, G. (2022). Being trans, being loved: Clashing identities and the limits of love. In A. Pismenny & B. Brogaard (Eds.): The Moral Psychology of Love, 171-190, Rowman & Littlefield., 2022

There is no specific trans perspective on romantic love. Trans people love and do not love, fall in love and fall out of love, just like everyone else. Trans people inhabit different sexual identities, different relationship types, and different kinds of loving. When it comes to falling in love as or with a trans person, however, things can get more complicated, as questions of gender and sexual identity emerge. In a study by Blair & Hoskin from 2018, 87.5% of the interviewed participants said they would not consider dating a trans person (Blair & Hoskin, 2018). Among those who were open to dating trans people, a pattern emerged: the subjects were disproportionately willing to date trans men but not trans women, even if this preference did not match their own sexual identity; for example, a woman who identifies as a lesbian may be open to dating a trans man but not a trans woman. This seems like a clash of sexual and gender identities: why are women who identify as lesbians willing to date men? This chapter aims to analyze this phenomenon: love between clashing sexual and gender identities – e.g., the love between a man, who identifies as being romantically interested in men, and a trans woman, – and thereby evaluates the limits of romantic love for trans people. Limits of love, in this chapter, are conceived of as normative restrictions on whom and how we love. By exploring cases of clashing sexual and gender identities in romantic love, this chapter analyzes how trans people’s opportunities for love are often limited.

Love as Common Ground, ed. Paul Fiddes, Rowan and Littlefield, Chapter 14., 2021

Genderlessness or postgendered orientations are not the same as genderqueer affect/s, yet Donna Haraway's figure of the cyborg helps imagine what a genderqueer affect might be. Genderqueer experience (including affect) can help us move beyond the limitations of gendered as well as epistemological dualisms. Affect transcends the reductive notions of materiality that return us always to dualistic constructions, including gendered ones. Kathleen Stewart's attention to affect—both experienced as well as embodied, a doing as well as a thing—provides a way into and out of the genderqueer body that is not dependent upon its materiality. KEYWORDS genderqueer affect; queer fragility; queer tools; trans*; critical autoethnography [Ordinary affects] can be " seen " obtusely, in circuits and failed relays, in jumpy moves and the layered textures of a scene. They surge or become submerged. They point to the jump of something coming together for a minute and to the spreading lines of resonance and connection that become possible and might snap into sense in some sharp or vague way.

Grenzen und Grenzüberschreitungen der Liebe, 2000

In The [Wholly] Normal Chaos of Love, the Becks advance the thesis that in an era of pervasive, generalized individualization, men and women no longer meet one another as status incumbents and role-players, each with a set of culturally handeddown scripts to play -he as 'man' she as 'woman', he as a member of one social class she of another, he of this age she of that, etc. Instead, lovers now seek out and meet one another as 'sheer individuals', that is, as more or less thoroughly individuated [individualized?] persons, each engaged in and fully committed to a life-long project of self-discovery and self-actualization. This project does not cease when two such individuals fall in love and decide to become a couple. On the countrary, a menage a deux presents them with yet another opportunity, indeed a most significant opportunity, to further realize themselves, whether through each other, or together with one another, or separately but with the wholehearted support of the other. This being the case, the Becks claim, it is understable why the overall, societal picture of contemporary couples and families has become so very variegated, and why it is likely in the foreseeable future to become even more variegated. Thus, just as individualization has been producing a practically infinite variety of individuals, so it is now producing among these highly individuated individuals a correspondingly infinite variety of couple and familial arrangements. Whence the 'wholly normal chaos of love'. I find this diagnosis of the current state of affairs persuasive. What I wish to do inthis presentation is to round out the Becks' theory with a few theoretical contributions of my own, largely inspired from Francesco Alberoni's brilliant -but, in sociology (especially in English-language sociology), still too little known and appreciated -extensive theoretical work on couple love and on social movements. Sasha Weitman, "Love & Self-Change". -5/3/2015-Prepared for German Sociological Society meetings Freiburg 98

Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling, 2019

Microaffirmations are small, interpersonal interactions that communicate validation for an identity. The present study focuses on transgender microaffirmations received from romantic partners. Participants included 339 self-identified transgender adults in a romantic relationship (currently or within the past 5 years). Participants were recruited via social media and snowball sampling and took an online survey detailing their experiences in romantic relationships. Participant responses were analyzed via thematic analysis, resulting in seven relationship-salient themes: (1) acknowledging and using cisgender privilege, (2) centering on partner's identity, (3) affirming gender(less) presentation, (4) helping partner process identity, (5) seeking permission, (6) using affirming language, and (7) acknowledging milestones. Findings emphasize the importance of positive aspects of romantic relationships. Implications for working with transgender clients are discussed.

Sexuality, Sexual and Gender Identities and Intimacy Research in Social Work and Social Care

This chapter begins by first providing an overview of previous literature on the topic of transgender people and intimacy, before reporting on findings from an Australian qualitative study. Importantly, the findings suggest both that understanding transgender people’s experiences of intimacy cannot occur absent of an understanding of the effects of discrimination, but that recognizing the impact of discrimination does not explain all there is to know about transgender people’s experiences of intimacy. Beyond the impact of both discrimination and cisgenderism, for many transgender people experiences of intimacy are fulfilling and meaningful. The chapter concludes with recommendations derived from these findings for clinicians who work with transgender clients.

American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1978

ThreeL Media, 2017

The question whether there are reasons for loving particular individuals (and not others), and what such reasons might be, has been subject to scrutiny in recent years. On one view, reasons for loving particular individuals (or, alternatively, what makes loving them fitting) are some of their qualities. A problem with crude versions of this view, however, is that they both construe individuals as replaceable in a problematic way and fail to do justice to the selectivity of love. On another view, by contrast, reasons for loving particular individuals have to do with our relationship with them. Even if it might accommodate the selectivity of love, the view-like crude quality views-ultimately faces worries stemming from replaceability. I argue for a view which combines the two views in a way that accommodates both the irreplaceable aspect under which individuals are loved and the fact that love is a selective response to them. On my view, reasons for loving particular individuals are some of their qualities as manifested in the context of a relationship with one. After spelling out the view, I discuss an important challenge facing it: what's so special about actually being in touch-via a relationship-with the positive properties of an individual that would explain why we have special reasons to love them in particular? I consider inadequate answers to this question before putting forward my own.

International Journal of Transgenderism, 2013

The present descriptive study examined the prevalence of romantic relationships in a large-scale international sample of female-to-male (FtM) transgender men, the rates that partners stay together during a gender transition of one of the partners, and the relationship between perceived social support from romantic relationships and the mental health of FtMs. Participants were trans men who completed an anonymous online survey. Of those who were in a relationship before they decided to transition, about half reported that their relationship had been maintained. FtMs who were in a relationship reported fewer symptoms of depression than those who were single. Perceived social support from a romantic partner was found to moderate the relation between being in a relationship and symptoms of both depression and anxiety. These findings highlight the fact that some relationships can and do endure through a gender transition and the importance of close, supportive relationships during and after transition.