‘Boy smell’: transgender and nonbinary people’s experiences of bodily smell

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dc.contributor.authorEasterbrook-Smith G
dc.date.accessioned2024-07-30T20:56:46Z
dc.date.available2024-07-30T20:56:46Z
dc.date.issued2024-07-18
dc.description.abstractAlthough 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.
dc.description.confidentialfalse
dc.identifier.citationEasterbrook-Smith G. (2024). ‘Boy smell’: transgender and nonbinary people’s experiences of bodily smell. Culture, Health and Sexuality.
dc.identifier.doi10.1080/13691058.2024.2379871
dc.identifier.elements-typejournal-article
dc.identifier.issn1369-1058
dc.identifier.urihttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/71158
dc.publisherTaylor and Francis Group
dc.relation.isPartOfCulture, Health and Sexuality
dc.rights(c) 2024 The Author/s
dc.rightsCC BY-NC-ND 4.0
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjecttransgender health
dc.subjectsensory studies
dc.subjectbody odour
dc.subjectgender identity
dc.subjectgender affirming hormone therapy
dc.title‘Boy smell’: transgender and nonbinary people’s experiences of bodily smell
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.elements-id490898
pubs.organisational-groupCollege of Humanities and Social Sciences
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