Transgender Studies

Panel host: Nordic Transgender Studies Network

Currently, the gender binary as a bodily, medical and legal norm as well as the questions whether sex and gender are biological or historically constructed, are heatedly debated in many feminist conversations within Sweden, the Nordics and beyond. In this panel we invite papers that engage critically with these and other negotiations of the gender binary as well as generally discuss trans, non-binary and intersex positions in their intersectional and multiple co-existences alongside other identities and positions.

In the Scandinavian context, while still small, Transgender Studies as a field within Gender Studies analyzes the specific social, material and discursive conditions and experiences of gender variant people and communities. As an intersectional field it has had a strong influence on the discipline, and it continues to participate in the ongoing project of rethinking gender binaries and their colonial and medicalized, western histories. As an academic field Transgender Studies started forming in the early 1970s and more solidly consolidated itself from up the early 1990s with pioneering publications in multiple social sciences journalsleading up to founding of the first academic journal on the field, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly in 2014.From the beginning, Transgender Studies set out to intervene in the objectifying theorisations of transgender embodiment and gender identity which had been dominant in hegemonic areas of sexology, psychology, and psychiatric medicine. Transgender Studies and trans activism are closely linked, and continue to link academic knowledge production with social, political and cultural practices.

This panel is organised by the Nordic Transgender Studies Network. We invite papers connecting questions surrounding trans, non-binary, intersex and genderqueer embodiment and/or cisnormativity with topics including but not limited to:

 

  • race and racism
  • critical whiteness
  • indigeneity
  • colonialism
  • migration
  • violence
  • ecology
  • health
  • activism
  • cultural production
  • utopias
  • art
  • media
  • laws and policies

 

Wibke Straube1, Irina Schmitt2 and Luca Tainio3

1Dr, Universitetslektor, Centre For Gender Studies, Karlstad University

2Dr, Universitetslektor, Gender Studies, Lund University

3Magister, Doktorand, Gender Studies, Helsinki University/Karlstad University