Trans youth, science and art: creating (trans) gendered space

Introduction: towards trans geographies

“…Thus all the articles presented here are empirically based and draw on trans lives as the main source of data and conclusion. For Rooke (2010) and Browne and Lim (2010), the empirical material draws on participatory projects; for Doan (2010), autoenthnography and for Hines (2010) and Nash (2010) interview materials and participant engagement. As trans researchers make clear, trans voices need to be heard and new knowledges created from the specific understandings gained through lived experiences (Namaste 2000;Stryker 2006).…”

“…Alison Rooke's (2010) article, 'Trans youth, science and art: creating (trans) gendered space', closes the collection. The article draws on a recent participatory arts project, 'Sci:dentity', through which young trans gendered and trans sexual people came together to explore the science of sex and gender through art.…”

Space for Queer and Trans Youth? Reflections on Community-Based Research in Montreal

“…This speaks to the productive aspect of the research process and its role in creating space. Rooke's (2010) analysis of the space created for trans youth by the Sci:dentity Project, for example, draws attention to the ways in which a participatory pedagogical project created a space of self-recognition that lay beyond the gendered normativities that shaped everyday experiences of space. She argues that the project provided a 'temporary space in which trans youth could see themselves and the possibility of creating a space for themselves in the world, as trans' (Rooke, 2010, p. 665).…”

Imag(in)ing Trans Partnerships: Collaborative Photography and Intimacy

“…Not only is embodiment clearly significant in intimate partnerships, visibility is also crucial in the recognition of identities (Alcoff, 2006;Owens, 1992;Steyn, 1997;Taylor, 1992). Alison Rooke (2010a) proposes that participatory art practice enables a "focus on the relationship between materiality and representational practices, social and political recognition, [and] the specificity of trans experience" (p. 30). Extending Rooke's (2010a) notion of participatory art practice, I argue that collaborative photography offers a specific potential for allowing trans intimate partnerships to be "seen" and thus become more culturally intelligible, contributing new perspectives to the work begun by Pfeffer (2008), Sanger (2010), and Hines (2010), and opening up a new space of possibility.…”

“…The research was conceived in the knowledge that trans people are a vulnerable group, who are somewhat "over-researched," having become something of a fetishized queer subject (Rooke, 2010a). Online communities for trans people and their partners regularly receive calls for participants to take part in studies conducted by sociologists, psychologists and other academics, leading to "research fatigue" within some of these communities (Rooke, 2010a). Additionally, researchers' (many of whom are non-trans) concerns are not always synonymous with the most pressing concerns of trans people and their partners.…”