0 Gagne, P. and Tewksbury, R. 1998 Social Problems 45 81-101 The power of gender as a social institution was examined through in-depth semistructured interviews with 65 masculine-to-feminine transgendered individuals. Analysis reveals that transgendered individual's sense of self was constrained by the dominant discourse of binary gender identity. The pervasiveness of that discourse resulted in gender conformity & resistance manifested, on the one hand, in social pressures to be like acceptable others & desires for relationship maintenance & self-preservation, &, on the other, in the need to actualize an identity more in line with the alternatively gendered authentic self. Initially, the femininity of transgendered individuals was enacted only in secrecy. Enactment of femininity over ever-widening social spaces fostered the emergence of an alternative sense of gender identity. Transgenderism is discussed as a discursive act that both challenges & reifies the binary gender system. 24 References. Adapted from the source document.