An Affirmation of Trans Livelihood In and Beyond Postsecondary Education

D. Chase J. Catalano, Siduri Burris Haslerig, T.J. Jourian, Z. Nicolazzo

Research output: Contribution to specialist publicationLetter

Abstract

In the Foreword to the Transgender Studies Reader, Stephen Whittle wrote, “Trans identities were one of the most written about subjects of the late twentieth century. New communities of transgender and transsexual people have created new industries, a new academic discipline, [and] new forms of entertainment. ...Any Internet search, whether of Web sites, news articles, or academic papers will produce thousands of results” (p. xi).2 Indeed, there has been a similar increase in academic publishing regarding trans identities, including in postsecondary education. And yet, despite this increasingly rich and diverse scholarship, trans people, particularly trans women and trans women of color, are cast as nonhuman, being used as foils for suggestions that gender identity is solely “a hotly contested matter of public concern” (p. 15),3 and, as such, is separated from the actual lived reality of trans people. In other words, despite a rich set of empirical research in and beyond postsecondary education, trans people continue to be rendered as nonhuman, their lived realities subject to public opinion and debate, and their agency stripped due to their supposed false claims of gendered selfhood.
Original languageAmerican English
Number of pages16
Specialist publicationAssociation for the Study of Higher Education
StatePublished - 20 Aug 2021
Externally publishedYes

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