“Coming-Into-Identity: Sensory and Linguistic Resistance in Lesbian Literature” argues that novels of lesbian identity development should not be subsumed by the Western literary genre of the Bildungsroman –– a traditionally male-centric, white, affluent genre depicting the journey from adolescence into adulthood. I show how certain narratives “of formation,” such as those written by and featuring multi-ethnic and gender diverse lesbians, are incompatible with the Bildungsroman tradition, which in addition to its Eurocentric history tends to prize linear narratives, an arc wherein identity formation concludes as adulthood commences. Identity-based oppression significantly impacts the temporality, methodology, and challenges faced by marginalized protagonists, so while tellings of lesbian identity development may include or interact with tenets of the Bildungsroman, these narratives call for a new distinction. In “Coming-Into-Identity,” I argue lesbian writers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century move away from the prescriptive Bildungsroman and are shaping a new genre: the coming-into-identity novel. As an alternative to the Bildungsroman model, I offer “coming-into-identity” as an emergent and often hybridized generic form, one which prioritizes lingering in-between spaces, dwelling in embodied multi-sensory experience, and perception through situated visions. The coming-into-identity novel rejects binary concepts of “coming out” and “staying in the closet,” tropes central to existent critical studies of LGBTQ+ literature. Instead, coming-into-identity narratives illustrate the radical potential of queer and trans self-formation grounded in the interiority of sensory experience and fluid self-knowledge, as opposed to common Bildungsroman tropes which privilege ageist linearity, social recognition as narrative resolution, and mind-body dualism.Methodologically, “Coming-Into-Identity” brings together memoir, speculative fiction, graphic novels, realism, and young adult literature to uncover the multi-sensory methods by which lesbian writers from the mid-twentieth century to the first quarter of the 21st depict the complexities of identity formation in the coming-into-identity genre. The project engages with the history of contentious and exclusionary politics in social justice movements during the 1960s and 1970s to trace the literary methods, such non-linear narrative structure, genre experimentation, and multi-sensory and synesthetic description, that emerge in response to these historic conflicts and exclusions. I think with and critique these movements to trace the imposed identity-based boundaries of social justice communities to challenge limits of genre and canon in American literature. In doing so, my work illustrates the coming-into-identity genre’s efficacy in revealing the many sensory and linguistic ways that multi-ethnic lesbian writers and characters navigate and overcome multiple forms of marginalization in the sociopolitical context of the United States.