‘I’m so proud: I grew it myself, I watered it and fed it and now it’s just a full-grown dick’: Challenging normative ideals of the penis through trans male embodiment

Abstract

Through a discussion of three YouTube vlogs by trans men, I am suggesting that the seemingly simple division between men who have penises (cis) and men who do not (trans) – as long as genital surgery has not been obtained – is materially more muddled than generally culturally considered, as well as to a great extent discursively created and maintained. Instead of understanding trans men’s bodies through lack and deficiency, I consider the trans penis as a part of body-reflexive practices of masculinity, a significant part of building one’s trans male self. I am thus arguing for a change in how we understand what a penis is, or what counts as a penis, as well as in how we see and understand trans men’s bodies.