This narrative study revealed that gender is contested when the idea of transgender works as a personal mechanism to question existing normativities of one’s own body and the self. Identity then is presented as a series of choices and performances that are validated in the persona’s transgender and blind condition.
Research on teacher identity is ample. Yet, relatively little research exists about non-licensed EFL teachers regarding transgender identity and non-normative corporalities. Similarly, few studies in Colombia have investigated the concept of teacher identity in transgender/blind non-licensed language teachers to understand this dimension of identity. This narrative study reports on an attempt to help reduce the aforementioned gap by exploring transgender/blind identities in a non-licensed language teacher in a public university in Bogota, Colombia. The study took on identity as multiple and fluid, and therefore never complete to understand how transgender/blind identities serve as a lens to shape the process of becoming a language teacher. Findings suggest that transgender/blind identity is made from either experiences that modify or re-construct the self. The study revealed that the notion of gender is contested when the idea of transgender works as a personal mechanism to question existing normativities of one’s own body and the self. Identity then is presented as a series of choices and performances situated in time that are validated in the transgender and blind condition.
