Over 205,000 Americans underwent weight loss surgery in 2007; approximately 85% of patients were women. This dissertation research examines how patients' self-conceptions change in relation to personal negotiations of gendered surgical discourses. I draw on data from 44 in-depth interviews and 55 open-ended surveys with male and female patients to consider the ways that self-concept transforms as individuals' negotiate obesity surgery-related discourses. Through the course of analyzing interview and survey data, and cultural and medical artifact materials, I identify four major discursive themes that most research participants grappled with as they underwent surgery. These include: medical conceptions of surgery, obesity related stigma, stigma related to appearance and stigma related to patients' surgical decision making. The four discourses I discuss in this research project are not the only discourses about weight loss surgery; however, these discourses are indicative of very salient moments in weight loss surgery patients' lives.

In examining weight loss surgery patients' changing self-conceptions, I am also building upon ongoing social psychology scholarship. Sociologists James Holstein and Jaber Gubrium (2000) argue that individuals rely on discourse negotiation and interpretive practice when constructing self-concepts, and that interpretive practices change throughout individuals' lives. However, Holstein and Gubrium have not articulated the processes by which intra-situational interpretive practice transformations can occur. In particular, they have not demonstrated how change in a single set of discursive circumstances can lead to self-concept transformation. During the course of data collection and analysis, I discovered three separate, but often related, processes that reveal how intra-situational change can impact the self. Individuals' interpretive practices and self-concepts can change: (1) as people gain knowledge of previously unknown discourses; (2) as patients' experiences of already known discourses alter; and/or (3) as patients grapple with conflicting discourses.

Each of the three paths I outline demonstrates how individuals' interpretive practices and self-conceptions can change. My research additionally advances gender, medical, cultural and identity studies by demonstrating that patients selectively utilize gendered medical and cultural discourses when constructing their surgically altered selves.