Trans Studies
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TRANS STUDIES TRANS STUDIES The Challenge to Hetero/Homo Normativities Edited by Yolanda Martínez- San Miguel and Sarah Tobias Rutgers University Press New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Trans studies : the challenge to hetero/homo normativities / edited by Yolanda Martínez- San Miguel and Sarah Tobias. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978– 0– 8135– 7641– 1 (hardcover : alk. paper)— ISBN 978– 0– 8135– 7640– 4 (pbk. : alk. paper)— ISBN 978– 0– 8135– 7642– 8 (e- book (epub))— ISBN 978– 0– 8135– 7643– 5 (e- book (web pdf)) 1. Transgender people. 2. Transgenderism— Study and teaching. 3. Gender iden- tity. I. Martínez- San Miguel, Yolanda. II. Tobias, Sarah, 1963– HQ77.9.T71534 2016 306.76'8— dc23 2015021888 A British Cataloging- in- Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. This collection copyright © 2016 by Rutgers, The State University Individual chapters copyright © 2016 in the names of their authors All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Visit our website: http:// rutgerspress .rutgers .edu Manufactured in the United States of America This book is dedicated to the memory of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, and to all those trans activists who work to imagine and create a more just world. CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction: Thinking beyond Hetero/Homo Normativities Yolanda Martínez- San Miguel and Sarah Tobias Part I: Gender Boundaries within Educational Spaces 1 Creating a Gender- Inclusive Campus Genny Beemyn and Susan R. Rankin 2 Transgendering the Academy: Ensuring Transgender Inclusion in Higher Education Pauline Park Part II: Trans Imaginaries 3 “I’ll call him Mahood instead, I prefer that, I’m queer”: Samuel Beckett’s Spatial Aesthetic of Name Change Lucas Crawford 4 Excruciating Improbability and the Transgender Jamaican Keja Valens 5 TRANScoding the Transnational Digital Economy Jian Chen Part III: Crossing Borders/ Crossing Gender 6 When Things Don’t Add Up: Transgender Bodies and the Mobile Borders of Biometrics Toby Beauchamp viii Contents 7 Connecting the Dots: National Security, the Crime- Migration Nexus, and Trans Women’s Survival Nora Butler Burke 8 Affective Vulnerability and Transgender Exceptionalism: Norma Ureiro in Transgression Aren Z. Aizura Part IV: Trans Activism and Policy 9 TheT in LGBTQ: How Do Trans Activists Perceive Alliances within LGBT and Queer Movements in Québec (Canada)? Mickael Chacha Enriquez 10 Translatina Is about the Journey: A Dialogue on Social Justice for Transgender Latinas in San Francisco Alexandra Rodríguez de Ruíz and Marcia Ochoa 11 LGB within the T: Sexual Orientation in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey and Implications for Public Policy Jody L. Herman Part V: Transforming Disciplines and Pedagogy 12 Adventures in Trans Biopolitics: A Comparison between Public Health and Critical Academic Research Praxes Sel J. Hwahng 13 Stick Figures and Little Bits: Toward a Nonbinary Pedagogy A. Finn Enke Conclusion: Trans Fantasizing: From Social Media to Collective Imagination Yolanda Martínez- San Miguel and Sarah Tobias Notes on Contributors Index ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Honoring our commitment to academic work that is linked to action, this anthol- ogy emerged in conjunction with the annual programming of the Institute for Research on Women (IRW), a research center that advances cutting- edge femi- nist scholarship on women, gender, and sexuality at Rutgers, the State Univer- sity of New Jersey. During the 2012– 2013 academic year, the IRW organized an annual program on “Trans Studies: Beyond Hetero/Homonormativities,” which included a distinguished lecture series, a weekly seminar for graduate students and faculty, and an undergraduate learning community. We also organized a spring colloquium entitled “Trans Politics: Scholarship and Strategies for Social Change,” which brought twenty- five scholars and activists to Rutgers to reflect on the productive intersections and collaborations taking place around issues relevant to Trans Studies. Our year- long programming was widely supported by many colleagues and units at the university; thanks to them we had the opportu- nity to devote an entire year to reflect on the ways in which Trans Studies is and has been transforming Feminist and Gender Studies over the last three decades. We would therefore like to begin by expressing our gratitude to the spon- sors of all our regular programming that year: the School of Arts and Sciences, the Office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Associate Vice President for Academic and Public Partnerships in the Arts and Humani- ties, Critical Caribbean Studies, the Center for Latino Arts and Cultures, and the Office for the Promotion of Women in Science, Engineering, and Math- ematics. We would also like to thank the sponsors of our spring colloquium: the Tyler Clementi Center, the Office of the Executive Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, Undergraduate Academic Affairs, the Associate Campus Dean of Douglass, the Committee to Advance Our Common Purposes, the Center for Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities, the Douglass Campus Dean, the Department of American Studies, the Department of History, the Institute for Women’s Leadership Consortium, the Program in Comparative Literature, the School of Communication and Information, the Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies, the Center for Latino Arts and Culture, and the Department of Anthropology. We also want to thank all the participants in the distinguished lecture series that year: Natasha Omise’eke Tinsley, Aren Aizura, Jin Haritaworn, Leah DeVun, A. Finn Enke, and Myra J. Hird. The twenty participants in our weekly semi- nar and the guests who visited us during the spring colloquium as well as the ix x Acknowledgments twenty- four undergraduate participants in our learning community led by our wonderful coordinator, Yomaira Figueroa, were also part of the vibrant intel- lectual community that enabled us to define the project of this anthology as a truly multi- and interdisciplinary conversation. We would like to thank all of these colleagues whose ideas, suggestions, and questions undoubtedly inform the rationale and structure of this anthology. We would particularly like to thank the panelists in our spring colloquium “Trans Politics: Scholarship and Strategies for Social Change” for their inspiring contributions to trans scholarship and activism. Special thanks are owed to Aren Aizura, our 2010– 2012 Mellon Postdoc- toral Associate at the IRW and in Women’s and Gender Studies. Aren gener- ously designed the first course on Trans Studies ever offered at our institution. Dr. Aizura was also instrumental in sharing his erudition and knowledge of the field of Trans Studies by suggesting both readings for the weekly seminar and guests for the distinguished lecture series and the spring colloquium and by mentoring our undergraduate and graduate students, as well as several faculty members who were interested in learning about Trans Studies as a field. Aren is not only a contributor to this anthology but also a constant interlocutor in the work we have done in Trans Studies, and we are extremely grateful for his leadership, intellectual generosity, and personal encouragement to undertake this project. We want to express our gratitude to the contributors to this volume, who have been willing to work closely with both of us to revise individual chapters in order to enrich the debates and conversations we wanted to showcase in this volume. At Rutgers University Press, we would like to express our thanks to editors Katie Keeran, Kimberly Guinta, and Leslie Mitchner who enthusiasti- cally adopted this project and were willing to work patiently with us to see this anthology become a book. Very special thanks are also owed to the anonymous reviewers of this anthology. Their careful and detailed reading of the manuscript as well as their generous suggestions on how to improve the chapters were very useful for all of us in the final review of this volume. Finally, we would like to thank Heather Love for encouraging the editors to consider the complexity of the relationship between normativity and Trans Studies, which we address in the conclusion. Editing this compilation has been an enriching learning experience and we have been able to complete this project thanks to the consistent encour- agement of our many collaborators through this entire process. Finally, we extend our deepest gratitude to Marlene Importico, program coordinator at the IRW until her retirement in 2013. Marlene took care of the minute details of the day- to- day operations of the IRW, from coordinating the logistics of all our programming and helping us host international visitors to supporting all the fellows in our weekly seminar and prompting us to reschedule Acknowledgments xi programming on snow days. She made sure that all our imaginary plans became concrete reality. Nothing at the IRW could have happened without Marlene, so this volume is profoundly indebted to her. Yolanda Martínez- San Miguel wants to thank former IRW director Dorothy Hodgson and former