Browsing by Author "Easterbrook-Smith G"

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‘Boy smell’: transgender and nonbinary people’s experiences of bodily smell
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2024-07-18) Easterbrook-Smith G
Although smell is sometimes treated with little regard, it is invested with cultural meaning and conveys a great deal of information, including about gender, sexuality and identity. This article draws on interviews with 11 transgender and nonbinary people who have accessed gender affirming hormone therapy (GAHT), and focuses on how they understand and explain changes in how their own bodies smell. Although it is well documented that GAHT causes changes in skin oiliness, changes in smell are inconsistently documented, and within the medical literature are often commented on only in passing. Taking a discourse analytic approach, the article finds that participants noticed changes in their own smell during hormonal transition, that in many cases this change was understood as significant in some way, and that these changes could be experienced as affirming. Understandings of what changes in bodily smell meant were often derived relationally or socially, although participants’ discussion of the experience frequently focused on their own embodiment. Smell seems to form part of a process of (re)identification with the physical self and gender affirmation that can be facilitated by GAHT.
“Change can never be ‘complete’”: the legal right to self-identification and incongruous bodies
(Northumbria University Library, 2020-07-30) Easterbrook-Smith G
At the time of writing, New Zealand's government is considering select committee recommendations to simplify the process for changing the sex recorded on a birth certificate (Governance and Administration Committee 2018). This article argues that the inconsistent requirements for binary and non-binary transgender people to amend their documentation indicates a scepticism of the legitimacy of non-binary identities. The current process for transgender people seeking to change their sex marker is onerous and often expensive (Noonan and Liddicoat 2008). Attaining an "indeterminate" marker on a birth certificate is so difficult as to be functionally impossible. Crown Law have suggested that “social factors” (how a person’s gender is perceived by others) would be considered by the courts when deciding on the veracity of their stated gender identity, indicating that being identifiable as a binary-gendered person is a contributor to achieving legal recognition of one’s gender. The proposal presumes that recording an "official" gender is natural and necessary. Legal recognition of non-binary people signals an expanded understanding of recognisable gender identities, but requires situating oneself within a bureaucratic framework. In light of the new process being proposed, I argue that if passed this Bill implicitly raises the question of why identity documents must have a sex marker on them at all.
“I’ve adopted it as my smell”: transgender identity and the olfactory
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2025-01-20) Easterbrook-Smith G
Smell is an often-overlooked sense within transgender studies, despite the extensive theorization of the ways that scent and perfume is categorized along gendered lines, and its links to identity more broadly. This article begins to address this presently under-studied topic, drawing on data from 26 interviews with transgender people about their perspectives on smell, scent, and fragrance in relation to identity. Interview data was analyzed using a combination of thematic and critical discourse analysis approaches. The participants reported that smell was often a central component of early experiences which prompted them to explore or question their gender identity; that fragranced items were something which they used to affirm their gender personally; and that smell was something they used to manage or direct others’ perceptions of their identity, including to minimize experiences of misgendering. Participants were acutely aware of how fragrances are culturally “read” as gendered, and while they were often critical of these divisions, they also acknowledged they could be useful at times. It is evident that smell and fragrance can form part of the process of gender identity exploration and expression for transgender people.
Love what you do (and it'll become increasingly difficult to agitate for workplace rights): Sex, work, and rejecting the empowerment discourse
(Taylor and Francis Group on behalf of Routledge, 2022-09-02) Easterbrook-Smith G; Rees E
Taking as its point of inquiry movements in sex work activism which frame sex work as work, this chapter considers the implications of a resistance to discourses of ‘empowerment’. An ‘empowerment’ discourse gained prominence through the late 1990s and 2000s as a means to justify sex work as legitimate and deserving of respect. However, this discourse has been weaponised against sex workers who experience exploitation, or other poor working conditions. Resisting the insistence that sex work must be pleasurable in order to be real work is implicitly a resistance to neoliberal and particularly postfeminist pressures to display an appropriate affective engagement in one’s work. Rather than a politics which aims for incremental acceptance for those already closest to inclusion, it demands that the work be taken seriously regardless of how, where, and by whom it is carried out. Speaking to the interplay of themes about the personal and political, this chapter argues that in this context a refusal to engage with discussions of pleasure may, counterintuitively, sometimes be subversive.
Pornographic aura, AI and the value of authenticity
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2025-06-16) Easterbrook-Smith G
The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools which can produce images and video from text inputs has prompted questions about the impacts of the technology on the pornography industry. While there has been extensive research into the implications of pornographic deepfakes, work which addresses the impacts of generative AI images and video that do not mimic a specific person is presently limited. Authenticity in pornography refers to multiple concepts, ranging from the depiction of non-simulated acts to the representation of ‘authentic’ pleasure. Multiple types of pornographic authenticity add value to a scene and can enhance the viewers’ enjoyment. This article argues that generative AI is unlikely to significantly disrupt the pornography industry, because the material it produces lacks a kind of auratic authenticity which pornography that depicts human subjects does possess, ultimately undermining the pleasure derived by the viewer.
Sex Workers’ Online Humor as Evidence of Resilience
(MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2023-06-07) Easterbrook-Smith G; Benoit CM; Mellor A; Rowland DL
Sex workers’ humor has received comparatively little attention in the literature to date, and work that does consider this phenomenon focuses on humor in face-to-face contexts. Increasingly, elements of sex workers’ labor and community building take place online. This article examines the emergence of sex work humor in online spaces, considering how this humor provides evidence of resilience within this community. The article uses a critical discourse analysis approach blended with a cultural studies lens to examine 171 discrete texts drawn from sex work communities in Australia and New Zealand. These include social media postings from peer-led organizations and correspondence between sex workers and their clients, which was profiled in news media during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The humor evident within these texts falls into three major categories: humor about clients; humor as a mechanism of discussing stigma and discrimination; and humor as an agent of activism and social change. The findings indicate that humor can be evidence of resilience among sex-working communities, that it is politically productive and effective from a communications perspective, and present the possibility that it may also contribute to resilience. The presence of humor in online sex work spaces of sociality further highlights the importance of these spaces for community building, and draws attention to additional harms created by deplatforming.
Shame, subjectivity, and pandemic productivity
(University of the Free State, 2021-12-14) Easterbrook-Smith G
As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe, the lockdown, isolation, and quarantine restrictions which were put in place in many countries obliged many people to begin working from home. Concurrently, advice in the form of articles and social media posts emerged, urging people to use the ‘opportunity’ of isolation during the pandemic to engage in self-improvement activities or launch a business. In this paper, I consider the ways that the temporal collapse between private and work life can be seen to exacerbate the degree to which these productivity discourses played upon neoliberal conceptions of identity formation through self-commodification and optimisation. The discourses frequently used a combination of shame and the suggestion that productivity was an obligation to the community, as well as to the self, to justify themselves and make finding purchase to engage in a critique of the broader structural issues at play more rhetorically difficult.
Transgender healthcare, telehealth, venture capital and community
(Intellect, 2023-07-31) Easterbrook-Smith G
Accessing reliable and competent gender-affirming medical care is often difficult for transgender people. FOLX is a telehealth and pharmaceutical delivery start-up which launched in late 2020, primarily offering gender-affirming hormone therapy for a monthly fee. FOLX’s marketing makes extensive use of social media and online influencers, and the company frequently highlights a goal of being created ‘by and for’ transgender people. This article examines FOLX’s deployment of narratives of community, collectivity, unmet need and commercial opportunity, examining the company’s website, social media posts and media coverage and interviews with the founder. Ultimately, it argues that while the core business offering of FOLX meets a need for a marginalized and underserved population, their deployment of narratives about community support should be regarded with some scepticism. These narratives appear in some cases to co-opt community values of collectivity, mutual aid and support for the benefit of venture capital firms.
Upmarket boudoirs and red lights: the physical environment of sex workplaces in New Zealand
(2024-01-01) Easterbrook-Smith G; Weinhold C
The physical environment and location of brothels has been the focus of significant scholarship, although much of the literature focuses on the exterior of these businesses, leaving the interiors as yet under-examined. In New Zealand, there is a tension between decriminalization’s intention that brothels are treated similarly to other businesses, and the enduring stigma which sex work is subject to. To mitigate stigmatization and public condemnation of their businesses, brothel owners sometimes mimic the aesthetic and branding of more mainstream industries. Drawing on data from media texts and interviews with brothel owners and operators, this article examines how ‘mainstreaming’ narratives of respectability and acceptability are produced in the physical space of brothels, particularly their interior décor and design. Media texts were analysed using a critical discourse analysis approach, and interviews using a Foucauldian discourse analysis model, allowing for an understanding of the interplay between the discursive production of the brothel sector and the physical environment of these businesses. We suggest that brothels’ interiors are used as a way of indexing their class status, and explore how this may be used to communicate ideas about the workers employed there, particularly in relation to existing stigmas about prostitution.