Course Proposal : Introduction to Trans Studies - Trans

WSDB: 398D/2 Sem. A Introduction to Trans Studies

Fall 2007

Trish Salah, Course Director

Class: Monday: 18:00-20:15

Rm: MU - 101

Office Hours:

Monday 16:00-17:00

Email: trishsalah@yahoo.ca

Course Description:

This Introduction to Trans Studies will constitute a sustained attempt to engage the question of what is being introduced to the academy under the rubric of Trans Studies—that is, how the discipline is being composed, delimited and legitimated—as well as our role as actors within that process. We will consider what does the process of producing this body of knowledge and array of disciplinary practices entail for transsexual, transgender, intersex and other sexual minority communities as well as for better established academic formations that have taken trans people as objects of knowledge (Women’s Studies, Lesbian and Gay Studies, Anthropology and

Psychology, for instance). Though these are not questions that can be easily or definitively answered, as the terrain is much contested, and even the phrase “Trans Studies” may be out of vogue by the time the class is completed, they do provide an organizing principle as well as an occasion for auto-critique. With the question of disciplinary formation in mind we will view, read, think about and discuss a wide range of textual and cultural objects, figures, political issues, theories, groups and communities variously named transgender, transsexual, intersex, transvestite, trans.

Required Texts:

Namaste, Viviane K. Sex Change, Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and

Imperialism. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2005.

Stryker, Susan & Stephen Whittle, eds. The Transgender Studies Reader. New York: Routledge,

2006.



Required course texts are available at the Concordia Co-op Bookstore ( 2150 Bishop

Street).



There are also required and recommended readings on reserve in the Simone de Beauvoir

Reading Room.

 N.B.: An ‘*’ indicates a required reading on reserve.



NB: The course reading load will vary from week to week. I advise you to plan your schedule accordingly and to read ahead when you are able.


Weekly Topics and Readings:

Week 1: Monday, Sept. 10 Introduction to the Course

The class will be an introduction to the main methodological and theoretical questions organizing the course. This class will also serve as an introduction to the various distinctions internal to trans communities, raising questions as to the relations and differences between transsexual, intersex, and transgender experiences, identities, social locations and communities.

Required Reading:

Namaste, Viviane. “Chapter 1” in Sex Change, Social Change. (1-11);

Hale, C. Jacob. “Suggested Rules for Non-Transsexuals Writing about Transsexuals,

Transsexuality, Transsexualism, or Trans__” (source: http://sandystone.com/hale.rules.html);

“Introduction to Transsexual/Transgender Terminology” Handout.

Lee, Christopher and Elize Hurwitz.(1996) Trappings of Transhood, San Francisco:

Genderfuck/Fuck Gender Productions.

Week 2: Monday, Sept. 17 Articulating Differences: Transgender/Transsexual Discourses

In this class we will discuss the origins of and distinctions between transgender and transsexual discourses. There are, of course, areas of overlap.


Feinberg, Leslie (1992) Transgender Liberation: A movement whose time has come. in The

Transgender Studies Reader. (205-220);

Bornstein, Kate. “Gender Terror, Gender Rage.” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (236-243);

Namaste, Viviane. “Chapter 2” in Sex Change, Social Change. (12-33).

Recommended Reading:

Bobby Noble. “Our Bodies are Not Our Selves: Tranny Guys and the Racialized Class Politics of

Embodiment.” In Tran/Forming Feminisms. Krista Scott Dixon, ed. Toronto: Sumach Press, 2006

(95-104) (on reserve in the Simone de Beauvoir Reading Room).

Week 3: Monday, Sept. 24 Healthcare, “Medicalization,” and GID 1: Histories

In this class we will consider the historical circumstances under which transsexual and transgender people have attempted to obtain healthcare, looking particularly at gender clinics as gatekeepers of transsexual healthcare.


Meyerowitz, Joanne. “A Fierce and Demanding Drive” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (362-

386);

Aaron Devore and Nicholas Matte. “ONE Inc., and Reed Erickson: The Uneasy Collaboration of

Gay and Trans Activism, 1964-2003” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (387-406).


Rubin, Henry. “The Logic of Treatment” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (482-498);

Namaste, Viviane. (2000). From Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgender

People, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (190-234).

Week 4: Monday, Oct. 1 Anthropological & Sociological Discourses


Harold Garfinkel. “Passing and the Managed Achievement of Sex Status in an “Intersexed

Person” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (58-93);

Esther Newton. Selections from “Mother Camp” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (121-130);

Evan B. Towle and Lynn M. Morgan. “Romancing the Transgender Native: Rethinking the Use of the ‘Third Gender’ Concept” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (666-684)


Roberts, Mary and Deniz Kandiyoti. “Transsexuals and the Urban Landscape in Istanbul” in

Middle East Report 206 (20-25) (on reserve in the Simone de Beauvoir Reading Room);

Brown, Lester B. ed. (1997). Two Spirit People: American Indian Lesbian Women and Gay Men.

Binghampton: Haworth Press (5-28) (on reserve in the Simone de Beauvoir Reading Room);

Cromwell, Jason. (1999) Transmen and FTMs. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

(83-100) (on reserve in the Simone de Beauvoir Reading Room)

October 8 - Thanksgiving, University Closed

Week 5: Monday, Oct. 15 Feminist Encounters & Engagements

The relationship between feminist movements and transsexual and transgender people has long been complex, productive and at times, highly antagonistic. This week we will center some of the issues dividing and uniting trans/feminist constituencies.


Janice Raymond. “Sappho by Surgery: The Transsexually Constructed Lesbian Feminist.” in The

Transgender Studies Reader. (131-143) ( N.B.

Raymond’s transphobia is toxic-read with care);

Carol Riddell. “Divided Sisterhood” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (144-158);

Lou Sullivan “A Transvestite Answers A Feminist” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (159-

164);

Koyama, Emi. “Whose Feminism is it anyway: The Unspoken Racism of the Trans Inclusion

Debate” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (698-705);

Namaste, Viviane and Georgia Sitara. “Chapter 5” in Sex Change, Social Change. (60-81).


Selections from TransSisters: the Journal of Transsexual Feminism . (on reserve in the Simone de

Beauvoir Reading Room);

Valerio, Max Wolf.

“Now That You're A White Man...” from This Bridge We Call Home , ed.

Gloria Anzaldua and Annalouise Keating. New York: Routledge, 2002. (239-254) (on reserve in the Simone de Beauvoir Reading Room).

Week 6: Monday, Oct. 22 GLBTQ-Why?

This week we will address what Henry Rubin calls “queer paradigmed” transgenderism and explore the contemporary alignment of trans activism and activist scholarship with queer activism and activist scholarship.


Stone, Sandy. (1991)"‘The Empire Strikes Back:’ A Posttranssexual Manifesto." in The


Prosser, Jay. “Judith Butler: Queer Feminism and the Transubstantiation of Sex” in The


Cheryl Chase, “Hermaphrodites with Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex Political

Activism” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (300-314).


Butler, Judith. “Doing Justice to Someone: Allegories of Transsexuality.” in The Transgender

Studies Reader. (183-193);

Rubin, Henry. “Phenomenology as Method in Trans Studies,” (1998)

GLQ: The Transgender

Issue (4,2), ed. Susan Stryker (263-282) (on reserve in the Simone de Beauvoir Reading Room)

Week 7: Monday, Oct. 29: Transgender Nation? Mediation & Representation

This week we will consider how colonialism, nationalism, class and white supremacy function in determining the social location of, and relations between, different trans and queer constituencies.



Katrina Roen. “Transgender Theory and Embodiment: The Risk of Racial Marginalization” in

The Transgender Studies Reader. (656-684);

*Ben-zvi, Yael “Zionist Lesbianism and Transsexual Transgression: Representations of Queer

Israel” in Middle East Report 206 (26-28) (on reserve in the Simone de Beauvoir Reading Room).


Helen Hok-Sze Leung. “Unsung Heroes: Reading Transgender Subjectivities in Hong Kong

Action Cinema” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (685-697)

Week 8: Nov. 5 Healthcare, “Medicalization,” and GID 2: Erasure and Access

This class will consider the contemporary situation faced by transsexual and transgender people seeking healthcare, looking particularly at the institutional erasure of trans people, both in the context of Gender Identity Clinics but also in other medical and social services.

NB: This week’s readings are ALL on course reserve in the Simone de Beauvoir Reading Room

Required Readings:

*Namaste, Viviane. (2000). From Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgender

People, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (157-189);

*Barsic, Jayson.

“Gender Identity Disorder” WillyBoy 2, Jan. 1998. (10-18);

*Kotelas, Rachel . “ Transsexualism & the Disability Rights Movement.” WillyBoy 4, July 1998.

(5-9)

Recommended Readings: http://www.transgender.org/gidr/index.html

Week 9: Nov. 12 Activism, the State, and Politics

This class will focus on the political challenges of, and limits to, negotiating with the state, and of employing legal discourses to do so.



Andrew Sharpe. “From Functionality to Aesthetics: The Architecture of Transgender

Jurisprudence” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (621-632);

*Ross, Mirha-Soleil.

(1995) “High Risk Project: Dancing To Eagle Spirit talks with Mirha-

Soleil” gendertrash 4, (5-10) (on reserve in the Simone de Beauvoir Reading Room).


*Levi, Jennifer & Bennet Klein. “Pursuing Rights for Transgender People Through Disability

Laws.” In Transgender Rights. Currah, Juang, Price-Minter, eds. Minneapolis: University of

Minnesota Press, 2006. (74-92);

“Trans Issues for the Labour Movement” (2005) Canadian Labour Congress.

( http://canadianlabour.ca/index.php/Trans_issues_for_the );

Gender Identity and Expression: Why its Right for the Workplace . http://www.outandequal.org/summit/presentations.shtml

.

Week 10: Nov. 19 Transphobic Violence and Anti-Violence Work

What is transphobia, and how does it function? How do social location, class, gender and race play as vectors of transphobic violence? How do we respond individually and collectively to antitrans violence?


Viviane Namaste. “Genderbashing: Sexuality, Gender, and the Regulation of Public Space” in

The Transgender Studies Reader. (584-600);

Richard Juang. “Transgendering the Politics of Recognition” in The Transgender Studies Reader.

(706-725)


Joshua Goldberg and Caroline White. “Anti-Violence Work in Transition.” In Trans/Forming

Feminisms. Krista Scott-Dixon, ed. Toronto: Sumach Press, 2006 (217-226);

Smith, Gwendolyn Anne. “Remembering Our Dead”( www.rememberingourdead.org

.) Gender

Education and Advocacy, 1998-2005.

Week 11: Nov. 26 Criminalized: Sex Work/Prisons

This class will consider the criminalization of transsexuality, tranvestitism and of sex work. We will also return to the question of divisions among trans people, exploring how distinct raced and classed locations give rise to distinct political priorities and strategies for change.

N.B.

This class will be an extended by one hour, to make up for the class missed at Thanksgiving and to screen & discuss, Cruel and Unusual & Yapping Outloud.


Viviane Namaste “Chapters 3, 6 & 7” in Sex Change, Social Change. (34-40; 82-85; 86-102);

*Contreras, Lefofora . (1995) “View from Treblinka” gendertrash 4, (25-28) (on reserve in the

Simone de Beauvoir Reading Room);

Film Screening:

Janet Baus, Dan Hunt, Reid Williams, dir. Cruel & Unusual . Outcast Films, USA, 2006

Ross, Mirha-Soleil. Yapping Outloud: Contagious Thoughts from an Unrepentant Whore , Written

& Performed by Mirha-Soleil Ross, Associate Director: Nicola Stamp, Toronto, 2002

Week 12: Monday, Dec. 3 Thinking Through the Body: Subjectivity, Desire, Narrative?

The body we live in is our most intimate situation. But how we live that body has both social and psychic determinations. This class considers arguments for, and critiques of, theoretical reflection upon trans peoples’ bodies. We will also consider representations of the desire for an

“appropriately” sexed, and gendered body, questions of shifting and persistent sense of self and sexual identity.


Rikki Anne Wilchins. What Does it Cost to Tell the Truth? ” in The Transgender Studies Reader.

-(547-551)

David Valentine. “‘I Went to Bed With My Own Kind Once’: The Erasure of Desire in Name of

Identity.” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (407-419);

Patrick Califia-Rice. “Manliness.” in The Transgender Studies Reader. (434-439).

*Starke, Katherine.

(2000). “Colours of the Mobil” in Transcriptions Special Issue.” Fireweed: a feminist quarterly of writing, politics, art & culture . v. 69 33-45


*Clare, Eli. (2004) “Neither Stone Nor Wing.” in From The Inside Out: Radical Gender

Transformation, FTM and Beyond Ed. Morty Diamond. San Francisco: Pub. Group West/Manic

D Press. (147-154);

*Prosser, Jay. (1998). Second Skins: body narratives of transsexuality, New York: Columbia

University Press (61-99).

Final Class


Criteria for Evaluation:

Criteria for Evaluation: Due:

25% Attendance, Participation and the Entry Ticket (weekly)

10% 1 st Essay (1000 words/4 double spaced pages) Oct. 1

25% In Class Group Presentation

40% 2 nd Essay (2500-3000 words/10-12 double spaced pages)

TBA

15% Thesis statement, supporting paragraph and

tentative bibliography

25% Essay

Oct. 15

Dec. 3

25% Attendance, Informed Participation and the Entry Ticket



10% Attendance and Informed Participation . Attendance will be taken at the beginning of class. You need to be in the classroom to participate, and you need to have read and thought about the readings to participate in an informed fashion. Creative engagement is encouraged; statements of opinion unsupported by careful reading and thinking are not. I recognize many students experience significant difficulty speaking up in class due to shyness (as well as for other reasons). As being comfortable speaking publicly is a major asset in academic, as well as other kinds of work, I encourage you to push yourself to join in classroom discussion. The effort is worth making. However I am prepared to discuss, on an individual basis, shifting some of the weighting of the participation grade onto the written entry ticket. It is your responsibility to speak to me, during office hours or after class, if you want to make such an arrangement.



15% Entry Ticket . Each week you must submit an entry ticket upon arrival in class.

Entry tickets should contain your name and the date, as well as an analytic question concerning one or more of the required texts for that class. You may include one or two sentences developing your question, but entry tickets should not run to more than a single, short paragraph. Your question may pertain to theoretical language, issues or concepts raised within the text or to issues arising for you in considering the text in relation to other course material and course questions. You are strongly encouraged to raise the issues that you address in your entry tickets during class discussion. The ticket is one way for you to raise questions about matters on which you would like further clarification. Type your entry tickets and keep a copy for yourself as submissions will not be returned. Late entry tickets are not accepted, nor will entry tickets be accepted in lieu of attendance. Tickets will be graded on a plus, check and minus system.

10% 1 st Essay

Your first essay for the term will be a brief critical commentary on a course reading of your choice, selected from those assigned up until the week of October 1. This essay should provide a brief précis of the reading, highlighting its main arguments or narrative features.

This should comprise no more than 1/3 of the essay. The remainder of the essay should be given over to analytic exploration of those aspects of the reading you find most relevant and engaging within the terms of this course. Feel free to consult related sources, and cite them properly. Length: 1,000-1,250 words (4-5 pages, double spaced)

25% Class Presentation

You will form groups of 3 at the beginning of the semester and sign up to present discussion questions for one session during the term. You will select one of the assigned readings, developing 3 questions that the reading raised for you. You do not need to give a synopsis of the reading, as everyone should have done the reading. However a very brief recap of those elements of the reading pertinent to your discussion questions is appropriate.

You should be prepared to unpack elements of the reading relevant to your questions, and to facilitate classroom discussion. Submit your notes on the presentation at the conclusion of class. Presentations should run no longer than 20 minutes, maximum.

40% Final Essay

Your 2 nd Essay will be on a topic of your choice pertaining to topics raised in the course.

You have considerable latitude with the mode of this paper: i.e. you may elect to produce a formal research paper, a critical or theoretical argument, or a more speculative and creative exploration of the themes, issues, figures and practices addressed in class. The choice is yours.



However you are required to submit a thesis statement, with a short paragraph sketching out your thinking on the topic, as well as a preliminary bibliography on October 15. This is worth 15% of your grade. It will be marked and returned to you with feedback for your essay.



The final essay is due on December 3 and is worth 25% of your final grade.

Length: 2500-3000 words (10-12 double spaced pages)

Student Responsibilities:

Attention to the rules of plagiarism. Plagiarism in any form is a serious academic offence.

It is my policy to proceed with formal action when incidents of plagiarism are found. It is your responsibility to be aware of the rules of plagiarism at Concordia, and to govern yourself accordingly. Ignorance of the rules is not an acceptable excuse.

You are responsible for all of the material covered in class (including in-class screenings), as well as for assigned readings, film, video and web-based texts. If you miss a class and/or a screening, it is your responsibility to catch up on any missed material. This includes readings, presentations, announced changes to the schedule, guest lectures, etc.

Keep written copies of all submitted work. Note also that I do not accept electronic copies of student work. Submit all work on time.

Treat all participants in the course with respect. Avoid dominating discussions. Once you have had your say, allow others who wish to do so to speak before you speak again. Avoid sexist, racist, able-ist and homo/transphobic language.

Ethics and ethical considerations

The work you do for this course may involve humans. For instance, if you plan to interview people as part of your research, if you want to observe people in a shopping mall, or if you want to read someone’s diary, then your research involves humans. Any research as part of course requirements that involves humans must receive approval from the Institute’s

Ethics Committee. If this is the case, you need to fill out a form for Ethics Approval. You can get a copy of the form from Linda, the Academic Advisor of the Institute. Submit completed forms to the mailbox of Viviane Namaste. This should be done early in the term, when you have an idea of what your major research project will be. You can get more information about ethics, and specific instructions on how to fill out the forms, on the Institute’s website, http://132.205.222.50/wsdb/ .

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