Out of Sync: Complex Temporality in Transgender Men's YouTube Transition Channels

Since 2006, transgender men have been using YouTube to document their physical transition. Building on queer temporality scholarship and the concept of transing, this article analyzes the temporality of these YouTube transition channels. Two key temporal strands—asynchrony and temporal entanglements—constitute a complex temporality in these transition channels. This complex temporality of transition undermines a linear understanding of transition through the entanglement of past, present, and future embodiment. In disrupting a linear model that positions passing as the telos of transition, a complex temporality of transition resists aggrandizing cis standards of gender and embodiment and allows for transgender experiences to be understood apart from these hegemonic ideals.