On the Intersection of Somatechnics and Transgender Studies

Abstract

The relationship between transgender studies and somatechnics has been generative. In this reflection on the intersection between somatechnics and transgender studies, the editorial collective of the Somatechnics journal provides a brief outline of what has been accomplished in the latter through an engagement with the former. This reflection is not intended to be an exhaustive review of trans*-somatechnics relations. Instead, here we highlight topics and modes of study that are indicative of critical interest in trans* matters at this time and how these matters intersect with our related areas of research. We outline how the somatechnical understanding of transgender as relational and constitutively realized through particular kinds of sociopolitical contexts explains the critical purchase of somatechnical investigations to trans* matters. We also cover somatechnics and transgender studies' engagements with technologies of mobility, race, and coloniality as well as media. We suggest that work in the journal on somatechnics and transgender studies constitutes a trans-substantial dialogue that trans*-identified scholars make specific via their contributions to social sciences and the humanities.