The Joy of Not Fitting In – An Essay on How Non-binary People Accomplish Gender Euphoria

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims to understand how gender euphoria is constructed by non-binary people, and how these experiences are embedded in ideas of masculinities and femininities. The theoretical point of departure involves the theorization of “doing gender” by West and Zimmerman, concepts from ethnomethodology inspired by Liberman, and finally “performative acts” by Butler. These theoretical points are relevant to understand how non-binary people are holding their gender identity accountable to others (and themselves) through their construction of gender euphoria. This can be explicated in the given site of their social world, which in my study surrounds: (1) internet-ethnographic observations online on 11 different posts about gender euphoria on Reddit, (2) e-mail interviews with 10 informants from USA, Sweden, Germany, and England, where 7 completed the full interview, and (3) face-to-face interviews with 3 informants locally and culturally situated in Denmark. This framework fits together with a social constructivism and hermeneutic methodology that allows the informants to construct their own realities, while I can find common themes by interpreting this construction. Hence, it can be concluded that the construction of gender euphoria by the informants in my study can be divided into five main themes: (1) embodying freedom, (2) accounting for gender euphoria, (3) negotiating gender euphoria, (4) transgressing strict and rigid norms, and (5) managing support. In other words, they accomplish gender euphoria by managing support, accounting, and negotiating how they embody a sense of freedom and belonging with a community, where they transgress strict, rigid gender norms to do gender in new or different ways that are embedded in ideas of masculinities and femininities.