This chapter begins by considering practices of care within transgender support and self-help groups. Here I am extending the meanings of care discussed in Chapter Two to look beyond care as something that is given or received within an intimate context of family or friendship networks in order to examine care practices in relation to self-help groups and social movements.

Social movements have been explored in relation to contemporary processes of social change. Giddens (1991) has discussed social movements as a significant form of ‘life politics’, while Beck (1992) discusses the realm of ‘subpolitics’ whereby disenfranchised groups participate in the reconstruction of social life. Social movement theory has traditionally focused upon the structural claims of social movements around the redistribution of wealth and social inequality (Martin, 2001). More recently, Fraser (1995), Mellucci (1996), Williams (1999) and Williams et al (2002) have brought attention to the ways in which social movements represent struggles over social recognition and difference. Williams et al suggest that social movements are made up of ‘collective actors’ and “consist of subterranean networks of people and groups embedded in everyday life” (2002: 9). In broadening the study of social movements beyond a structural analysis, Williams (1999) follows Fraser (1995) and Honneth (1996) in using a ‘politics of recognition’ to account for the diversity of welfare struggles around difference.

In considering practices of care within transgender support groups, the aim of this chapter is to incorporate transgender community self-help groups into studies of social movements. The first part of the chapter draws on research into transgender care and then moves on to discuss the main transgender support and self-help groups in the UK, addressing the specific kinds of care these groups provide. The second part of the chapter explores the significance of support groups in relation to the notion of shared experience, and looks at the values that matter to transgender people in relation to the giving and receiving of care within support groups. The next section considers the extent to which transgender support groups fill the gaps left by a deficit of professional care. Finally, the chapter considers the complexities of involvement in support groups in relation to a politics of transgender visibility and issues of transgender citizenship and recognition.