Displacing the Gender Binary Through Modes of Dis/Organizing: Sex Toys, Sexuality and Trans Politics

Abstract

Scholars in sexuality and organization studies have highlighted the centrality of sexuality in organizational power and the ways in which sexuality is in/visibilized, controlled, violently exercised, normativized, and/or resisted in organizations. However, there is still little empirical research focusing on social-movement organizations that promote political change in transgender sexual cultures. With this article, I contribute a qualitative case study of a trans and non-binary do-it-yourself (DIY) sex-toy workshop. Drawing on organization, social-movement, and transgender studies, I develop the notion of ‘trans-organizing’ as a specific mode of organizing and ask: How does trans-organizing around sexuality displace the gender binary in the context of a DIY sex-toy workshop? My findings hint at three dis/organizing processes: dis/organizing language, embodiment, and knowledge sharing.