Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Resources Curated by Gender & Sexuality Studies

TRANS*-RELATED MEDICAL SURGERIES IN THAILAND (GNDR_ST 341)

Taught by Jillana Enteen
This course is situated at the intersection of theoretical, cultural, medical, and commercial online discourses concerning the burgeoning Gender Affirmation-related surgeries presented online and conducted in Thailand. Using Gender, Queer, Trans, Asian American, and Digital Humanities Theories, we will discuss the cross-cultural intersections, dialogues, refusals, and adaptions when thinking about medical travel to Thailand for gender/sex related surgeries. We will examine Thai cultural/historical conceptions of sex and gender, debates concerning bodies and diagnoses, and changes in presentations of sex/gender related surgeries offered online. We will also explore how digital archives are created and managed. Investigating transcripts of live interviews, medical discourses, and an archive of web images offering GAS surgeries produced by Thais for non-Thais will serve as axes for investigating this topic.

QUEER CRIMINALITY & POLITICAL TRANSGRESSION (GNDR_ST 353)

Taught by Ray Noll
This course addresses the political potentials of criminality within queer life by considering historical and contemporary acts of queer transgression as “criminal.” We will draw from literature that underscores the criminalization of queer life, particularly the hyper-criminalization of queer communities of color, but this course will also move beyond mechanisms of criminalization by asking critical questions about queer illegalism and its capacity to destabilize an existing political world. Reading within historical studies of criminality in the social sciences, specifically anthropology and political science, we will consider queer criminality as a departure from other interpretations of crime as – for instance – pathological, symptomatic, opportunistic, reactionary, constructed, or in collusion with “legitimate” political and economic orders. While still attending to these themes through keys texts in the study of crime, this course reflects on how conceptualizations of political transgression and crime have been historically transformed and renewed through queer thought and approaches, particularly through figures such as the deviant, the outlaw, or the rebel. We will discuss these figures within theorizations of broader political transgression, such as social movements, uprisings, and revolutions.

BEYOND THE BINARY (GNDR_ST 235)

Taught by Ray Noll
This course is a 200-level, introductory course that explores racial formation and the boundaries and binaries of gender. This course will overview approaches to understanding gender norms and categories, as well as consider experiences, living, and contestations beyond these binaries. Particularly through reading trans*, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming histories, identities, experiences, and politics, this class will consider the possibilities and problems of categorizing “the beyond.” We will discuss shifting conceptualizations of “normal” gender, and what is assumed to defy this “normal” as embedded in the intersecting histories and legacies of race, class, sexuality, nationality, and ability. For instance, what is the relationship between race and gender that specifically shapes and forms the boundaries of gender in the US – both historically and in the contemporary moment? What is the enduring role and stakes of scholarship and discourses in the social sciences, such as anthropology, that seeks to frame the boundaries of gender? How does power in social, cultural, and political arenas impact these discourses? This course aims to recognize and understand these contested histories of gender through the lens of our current moment, and we will consider the potential and limits of visibility, representation, and inclusion that trans* activism and liberation, particularly from the legacies of trans* of color communities, has continued to challenge within coercive gender systems.

CRITICAL TRANS STUDIES (GNDR_ST 390)

Taught by Eli Kean
What is ‘critical’ about Critical Trans Studies? In this seminar class, we will explore gender not simply as an aspect of individual identity, but also as a deeply embedded social structure that regulates and criminalizes expansive possibilities of gender identity and expression. Throughout the course we will take a deep dive into legal and educational contexts by exploring issues such as knowledge production, in/visibility, police and prison abolition, gender-expansive schooling, transformative justice, and multi-issue activism. We will engage with and critically discuss texts from the fields of legal studies, education, sociology, philosophy, race/ethnic studies, and disability studies, with a commitment to centering the experiences and perspectives of trans and non-binary people both inside and outside of the academy. The questions we ask in this course include the following: How is the gender binary deeply woven into the policies and practices of social institutions such as education and criminal justice? How does genderism overlap and interact with other forms of oppression such as racism and ableism? For whom does the new visibility of trans identity benefit, and whom does it harm? How can we transform educational and legal contexts to be attuned to gender diversity, particularly as it intersects with issues of race/ethnicity, disability, citizenship, and social class? Seminar discussions will depend upon students who are engaged with the course material and are actively participating. Assessments will include reflections, short analytical papers, co-leading class discussions, and a final project.

TRANS*-RELATED MEDICAL SURGERIES IN THAILAND (GNDR_ST 341)

Taught by Jillana Enteen
This course is situated at the intersection of theoretical, cultural, medical, and commercial online discourses concerning the burgeoning Gender Affirmation-related surgeries presented online and conducted in Thailand. Using Gender, Queer, Trans, Asian American, and Digital Humanities Theories, we will discuss the cross-cultural intersections, dialogues, refusals, and adaptions when thinking about medical travel to Thailand for gender/sex related surgeries. We will examine Thai cultural/historical conceptions of sex and gender, debates concerning bodies and diagnoses, and changes in presentations of sex/gender related surgeries offered online. We will also explore how digital archives are created and managed. Investigating transcripts of live interviews, medical discourses, and an archive of web images offering GAS surgeries produced by Thais for non-Thais will serve as axes for investigating this topic.

INTRODUCING TRANS * CINEMA (GNDR_ST 231)

Taught by Nick Davis
Though media discourses, policy debates, and cultural productions around trans, nonconforming, and nonbinary gender have markedly increased in recent years, filmmakers have explored stories and characters along these lines for over a century. This course will offer an eclectic survey of that cinematic tradition, with a strong but not exclusive focus on the US and an emphasis on diverse styles, subjects, and debates over the last few decades. Along the way, students will learn fundamentals of nuanced film analysis as well as important vocabularies and concepts in trans* studies, originating both within and outside the academy.

Watch this video introduction to the course!

QUEER CRIMINALITY & POLITICAL TRANSGRESSION (GNDR_ST 353)

Taught by Ray Noll
This course addresses the political potentials of criminality within queer life by considering historical and contemporary acts of queer transgression as “criminal.” We will draw from literature that underscores the criminalization of queer life, particularly the hyper-criminalization of queer communities of color, but this course will also move beyond mechanisms of criminalization by asking critical questions about queer illegalism and its capacity to destabilize an existing political world. Reading within historical studies of criminality in the social sciences, specifically anthropology and political science, we will consider queer criminality as a departure from other interpretations of crime as – for instance – pathological, symptomatic, opportunistic, reactionary, constructed, or in collusion with “legitimate” political and economic orders. While still attending to these themes through keys texts in the study of crime, this course reflects on how conceptualizations of political transgression and crime have been historically transformed and renewed through queer thought and approaches, particularly through figures such as the deviant, the outlaw, or the rebel. We will discuss these figures within theorizations of broader political transgression, such as social movements, uprisings, and revolutions.

BLACK LIFE. TRANS LIFE. (AF_AM_ST 101)

Taught by Marquis Bey
This course will introduce students to the parameters and textures of black life, trans life, and black trans life. Popular discourse has either depicted black trans people as glamorous superstars or always and already predisposed to death. This course, then, seeks to usefully complicate these narratives and focus on black and trans life. To that end, the course will task students with gaining an understanding of the nuances of black life via its entanglement with the afterlife of slavery and contemporary radicalism; with trans life via its troubling of the gender binary; and black trans life via the ways that blackness and transness interact and converge.

TRANSGENDER HISTORY (HISTORY 200)

Taught by Lauren Stokes
The terms “trans” and “transgender” may have only been in widespread use since the 1990s, but the history of crossing gender, transing gender, nonbinary gender, and gender nonconformity is much longer. How did people in the past experience and think about gender? How did trans people find each other and form communities? How did the modern movement for trans liberation develop? Students in this class will answer these questions with a focus on North America and Europe, learning about people including these “transvestite” activists at the First International Congress for Sex Reform on the Basis of Sexology, held in Berlin in 1921.

This course is also designed as an introduction to how historians think. Students will analyze secondary sources in order to learn about how historians construct arguments within a rapidly-developing field and will conduct their own research on primary sources, including laws about cross-dressing, medical and sexological texts, newsletters, and oral histories. For the final project, students will curate their own digital exhibition on trans history using a selection of objects from the Digital Transgender Archive and other digital resources.

BEYOND THE BINARY (GNDR_ST 235)

Taught by Ray Noll
This course is a 200-level, introductory course that explores racial formation and the boundaries and binaries of gender. This course will overview approaches to understanding gender norms and categories, as well as consider experiences, living, and contestations beyond these binaries. Particularly through reading trans*, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming histories, identities, experiences, and politics, this class will consider the possibilities and problems of categorizing “the beyond.” We will discuss shifting conceptualizations of “normal” gender, and what is assumed to defy this “normal” as embedded in the intersecting histories and legacies of race, class, sexuality, nationality, and ability. For instance, what is the relationship between race and gender that specifically shapes and forms the boundaries of gender in the US – both historically and in the contemporary moment? What is the enduring role and stakes of scholarship and discourses in the social sciences, such as anthropology, that seeks to frame the boundaries of gender? How does power in social, cultural, and political arenas impact these discourses? This course aims to recognize and understand these contested histories of gender through the lens of our current moment, and we will consider the potential and limits of visibility, representation, and inclusion that trans* activism and liberation, particularly from the legacies of trans* of color communities, has continued to challenge within coercive gender systems.

GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE, POWER, & THE CARCERAL STATE (GNDR_ST 332)

Taught by Renee Shelby
In the U.S., the dominant social response to gender-based violence centers policing, prisons, and other carceral practices. This course examines the intersecting power relations that shape experiences of violence and efforts to address it. We will focus on the politics and practices of criminalization and incarceration and struggles for gender, racial, and economic justice—including the prison-industrial complex; Whiteness and colonial violence; rape myths, law, and forensic technology; Black women’s activism; and social movements shaped by carceral and anti-carceral feminism.

QUEER INDIGENEITY (GNDR_ST 363)

Taught by Enzo Vasquez Toral
What is indigeneity and how can it help us rethink gender and sexual non/normativity? In what ways current notions and identities such as queer and trans* are expansive yet reductive to approach the experiences of Indigenous and Native people? This course critically explores Indigenous ways of knowing in the Americas in contrast to traditional views of gender and sexuality. By introducing and relying on decoloniality as a practice and form of analysis, the focus of this course will be two-fold: 1) We will analyze how contemporary understandings of gender and sexuality are contested by indigeneity across time, and how they operate within colonial processes and legacies; 2) We will focus on the ways scholars from Indigenous and Native Studies have theorized gender and sexual non-normativity in relation and in response to scholars in Queer and Trans Studies. As we move across several communities and geographical spaces, students will engage in tandem with primary and secondary sources including first person accounts, films, short literary texts, performance pieces, and historical, ethnographic, and theoretical works. Overall, students will develop skills in written, performance, and theoretical analysis while expanding their knowledge on gender and sexual minorities beyond western epistemologies. Students will complete written assignments, a short presentation, and a final project.

EVERYDAY RESISTANCE & REIMAGINATION (GNDR_ST 390)

Taught by Addie Shrodes
How might everyday action create social change? This course explores the politics and possibilities of resistance to interlocking structures of power and imagining other ways of being in everyday life. With tools from feminist, queer, queer-of-color, and trans studies, we will take up micro-level practices of everyday life as potentially transformative of macro-level systems and structures (e.g., settler colonialism, systemic racism, trans and queer oppression, ableism, and sexism). We will explore agency in day-to-day spaces such as schools, social movements, and the dance floor through scholarly and creative sources centering BIPOC, trans, and queer makers. Students will acquire tools and develop skills to critically and imaginatively examine cultural representations, publics, and our everyday lives as sites of potential resistance and reimagination. Artwork (left to right) by Asia-Vinae Jazzreal Palmer, Art Twink, and Kah Yangni featured in Trans People Exist in the Future: A Zine of Art + Poetry Celebrating Trans Resilience.