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Sel J. Wahng, PhD, Behavioral Science Training Program/Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, National Development and Research Institutes, Inc./Columbia University, 400 7th Ave., Apt. 3L, Brooklyn, NY 11215, 718-974-8167, sqw2864@nyu.edu

This paper describes three distinct ethnocultural “male-to-female transgender” (MTF) communities emerging through an ethnographic study on MTF transgender people in New York City. These three communities are the low-income Black (African American and Caribbean) and Latina/o house ball community, low-income immigrant and often undocumented Asian sex workers, and middle-class White crossdressers. These communities are highly socially isolated from each other and are more connected to their ethnocultural contexts than an abstract and shared “transgender” identity. While previous research have either viewed MTFs as one monolithic group or have separated MTFs as abstract racial categories unconnected to communities and lifestyles, this paper positions MTFs within specific social networks, cultures, neighborhoods, and lifestyles. Categorical marginalization led to the house ball members occupying a transparent subordinated status, whereas conditional integrative marginalization of the API community led to API sex workers occupying a privileged subordinated status. White crossdressers experienced stigma because of their gender but were not racially marginalized and occupied a position of mitigated dominance. These different types of social marginalizations and subordinations have a direct correlation with HIV vulnerabilities.

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