Bodies with New Organs

Abstract

“Transgender rights are the civil rights issue of our time.” So stated Vice President Joe Biden just one week before the November 2012 election. This article critically reframes calls such as this by foregrounding a historical trajectory not celebrated by national LGBT groups or media or explicitly theorized in most queer or trans theory: the move from the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act to the present moment of trans hailing by the US state. Such a trajectory helps map the ways that neoliberal mandates regarding productive, capacitated bodies entrain the trans body to recreate an abled body not only in terms of gender and sexuality but also in terms of economic productivity and the economic development of national economy. Rather than argue for a better form of discretion between the categories of trans and disability, this article analyzes the ontological irreducibilities of such categories, irreducibilities that dissolve them through multiplicity. In following the implications of such an argument, this article unfolds trans and disability studies' concerns within a broader analysis of the geopolitics of racial ontology.

Tumblr was a trans technology: the meaning, importance, history, and future of trans technologies

“…A linear temporal perspective is often used by oppressive institutions against trans people; more open views of change over time, or a trans-ing of time, are critical to making trans lives more liveable (Snorton 2017). Additionally, medical institutions pathologize trans people, assuming every trans person's gender identity is linear and static (Puar 2015;Evan Vipond 2015) and often requiring them to discuss their bodies using certain narratives to "prove" their transness to traverse medical and legal barriers (Prosser 1998; Allucquère Rosanne (Sandy) Stone 1987). The dominant narrative of trans experience is that of "fundamental change"-a separation between pre-and a post-transition experience, and a specific moment when gender "switches"-which for most trans people is false (Amy Billingsley 2015; Stone 1987).…”

A Right to Exist: A Palestinian speaks

“…A linear temporal perspective is often used by oppressive institutions against trans people; more open views of change over time, or a trans-ing of time, are critical to making trans lives more liveable (Snorton 2017). Additionally, medical institutions pathologize trans people, assuming every trans person's gender identity is linear and static (Puar 2015;Evan Vipond 2015) and often requiring them to discuss their bodies using certain narratives to "prove" their transness to traverse medical and legal barriers (Prosser 1998; Allucquère Rosanne (Sandy) Stone 1987). The dominant narrative of trans experience is that of "fundamental change"-a separation between pre-and a post-transition experience, and a specific moment when gender "switches"-which for most trans people is false (Amy Billingsley 2015;Stone 1987).…”