Episode 92: Trans and Class

RedFem

We discuss transgenderism as a subculture embraced by the bourgeois classes a decade ago, but more recently filtering down to the working-class and lumpen. This is how culture often works, the dominant classes introduce cultural forms or alternative lifestyles, but dispense with them once those forms become popularised. We make a distinction between how transgenderism operates for the elites, as a kind of currency and status signalling, whereas for the lower working-class and lumpen, it functions as a means of justifying their separation from social norms and, for some young women, as a cry help. Plus, Elliot Page and Mae Martin, Emo, and the Victorian trope of women living relatively bed bound due to 'nerves'.