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Abstract

Trauma is an experience that is fundamentally beyond comprehension. It disrupts the victim's ability to process and understand the event fully, leading to a fragmented and delayed response whereas gender influences the experience and representation of trauma. This research papers examines psychological and emotional ramifications of trauma in general and gendered trauma in particular to highlight sexual abuse and its repercussions in Lyga's Boy Toy. Grounding the arguments on theoretical underpinnings of Trauma as contented by Cathy Caruth, the selected novel has been textually analyzed to explore and identify how trauma narratives are shaped by gender norms and expectations. This paper further walk around gender stereotypes an individual encounters at the hands of trauma and highlights that the prejudiced response towards them, is direct result of gender norms. The study maintains that gender performativity of the protagonist Josh, portrays how he manifests and deals with the trauma of sexual abuse. The paper concludes that gender inequality and bias of the society plays a role in strengthening the discrimination of trauma based on the gender of the victim as faced by Josh who is the victim of abuse, the narrative is sexualized, all while robbing the situation of the gravity that truly encompasses a victim experiencing trauma.