Lydia’s Urn: Exploring Trauma, Non-binary Identity, and Plural Subjectivity via Metamodern Gaming, a Creative Dissertation

Not all non-binary folks, commonly called “enbies,” but also considered trans, often experience gender dysphoria in a manner like the descriptions provided in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). For example, the manual tends towards definitions that include primarily, trans folk who specifically desire the opposite gender they were labeled at birth. However, this does not describe nonbinary/genderqueer folk, and those enbies who do report gender dysphoria cover some diagnostic criteria, primarily that associated with a feeling of frustration with gender signifiers and an overall sense of discord between one’s assigned gender identity and lived gender identity. Although Richards, Bouman, and Barker position their work in Genderqueer and Non-binary Genders as formative, they acknowledge “…the authors in this volume are the giants upon whose shoulders other may stand” (2), and while there exists other texts describing and compiling the experiences of individuals who fall into these categories, a dearth of literature describing the experiences of non-binary/genderqueer folk remains. This project seeks to expand upon those works