Before 1992, the term “transgender” was a linguistic rarity, used by a small subset of people to describe individuals who identified neither as “transsexual” nor “transvestite.” By the turn of the new millennium, however, “transgender” had become a beacon of radical politics as well as a lynchpin of emergent queer theory. How did transgender politics coalesce and develop in these years, and what were its key innovations within and against queer, feminist, and leftist politics? How did grassroots networks of trans sex workers and activists engage with trans writers, scholars, and theorists in the 1990s to elaborate the terrain of transgender politics, and where did debates and disagreements arise? How did transgender politics challenge and enlarge identity politics at the turn of the millennium? How did transgender political theory interface with feminist, Marxist, and anti-imperial analyses of oppression, and what types of solidarity did this give rise to?
Beginning with the Stonewall Riots of 1969, this course will chart the articulation of a specifically transgender politics in the last decades of the twentieth century. Taking a historically grounded approach to this material, the course will consider the legacies of trans activism before Stonewall, trans interventions in gay and lesbian liberation movements, and trans contributions to and critiques of queer politics. Readings will include primary and secondary texts by Sandy Stone, Leslie Feinberg, Susan Stryker, Elizabeth Freeman, Lauren Berlant, TJ Billard, Miss Major, Dan Irving, Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Che Gossett, Michelle O’Brien, Finn Enke, Toby Beauchamp, Emma Heaney, and others.
Please Note:
There *is* no physical Brooklyn Institute. We hold our classes all over (thus far) Brooklyn and Manhattan, in alternative spaces ranging from the back rooms of bars to bookstores to spaces in cultural centers, including the Center for Jewish History, the Goethe-Institut, and the Barnard Center for Research on Women. We can (and do) turn any space into a classroom. You will be notified of the exact location when you register for a class.
Instructors will contact students approximately one week prior to the first class with reading assignments and details about the course location.
