Reducing the Joy Deficit in Sociology: A Study of Transgender Joy

Abstract

Joy is a crucial element of people’s everyday lives that has been understudied by sociologists. This is particularly true for scholarship about transgender people. To address what we term a joy deficit in sociology, we analyze 40 in-depth interviews with trans people in which they were asked what they find joyful about being trans. Their responses demonstrate the methodological and theoretical importance of asking about joy. Four main themes emerged from the interviews. First, interviewees easily answered the question about joy. Second, contrary to common assumptions, we found that transgender people expressed joy in being members of a marginalized group and said that they preferred being transgender. Third, embracing a marginalized identity caused the quality of their lives to improve, increasing self-confidence, body positivity, and sense of peace. Finally, being from a marginalized group facilitated meaningful connections with other people. Our findings demonstrate a vital need to address the joy deficit that exists in the sociological scholarship on transgender people specifically, and marginalized groups more generally. Bridging the sociology of knowledge and narratives, we show how accentuating joy offers nuance to understandings of the lived experiences of marginalized people that has been absent from much of sociological scholarship.