Albeit nearly a decade old, Boy with Flowers broaches similar issues( such as having one’ s gender-identification ignored) and thus remains valid as a means of tackling the cultural obstacles that trans people face today. Before this background, this paper explores the techniques of subversion that Shipley employs in order to challenge hegemonic gender norms and, more specifically, the tropes that society uses to enforce binary gender. A trope of‘ femininity’ in Western culture is flowers, which, as indicated by the title, Shipley unsettles throughout the collection. I will explore one example in which flowers are utilised in attempt to socialise the speaker as a girl. This will then be contrasted with three other instances in which Shipley uses flowers as subversive symbols of the speaker’ s body and transition into masculinity. Through this approach I seek to return authority to the speaker’ s identity claims and lived experiences of the body.
My attention to the speaker’ s lived experience is informed by the philosophical principles of phenomenology. Phenomenology brought subjectivity to the forefront of analysis in contemporary, western cultural theory. As Gayle Salamon explains,‘ the body is more than merely its materiality’ – equally important is how one feels in and experiences one’ s own body. 1 Although phenomenology originated with Edmund Husserl, this paper draws on the more recent work of Henry Rubin, as he was the first to apply phenomenology to the context of transgender studies. Rubin’ s adaptation is influenced by the Sartrean concept of the body as fragmented, containing three ontological levels. 2 The first level is the body-for-itself, or the body as point of view. This is how the individual experiences and identifies with their own body. The second level is the body-for-others: the body as object. This is how others perceive said individual’ s body. The final level of bodily ontology, for both Sartre and Rubin, is the alienated body. This is when the individual is coerced into taking the viewpoint of others upon their own body. That is, when the body as point of view is understood as the body-for-others. 3
Shipley’ s poetry resonates with Rubin’ s approach to phenomenology: the speaker has a body image that is initially at odds with the physical body, which leaves them feeling alienated from that body. However, I argue that a phenomenological method is promising for the speaker as it advocates that the‘ felt sense’ of the body need not‘ match’ the body’ s physical contours. Taking this forward, I will argue that just as flowers need not be restricted to symbols of femininity, neither should the speaker feel restricted by the material body. This is because Rubin’ s phenomenological approach provides a necessary framework to reconsider what‘ constitutes’ a body.
1
Gayle Salamon, Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality( New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 154.
2
Henry Rubin,“ Phenomenology as Method in Trans Studies,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 4, no. 2( 1998): 268.
3
Ibid., 268.
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