Journal Articles
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915
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Item “I’ve adopted it as my smell”: transgender identity and the olfactory(Taylor and Francis Group, 2025-01-20) Easterbrook-Smith GSmell 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.Item ‘Boy smell’: transgender and nonbinary people’s experiences of bodily smell(Taylor and Francis Group, 2024-07-18) Easterbrook-Smith GAlthough 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.