How to do the History of Trans Femininity

Is trans femininity part of the history of women, or the history of gay people? Is trans womanhood one subdivision of a general category of transgender, or does it have its own unique history? Is the trans prefix ultimately a Western word, or does it bear a global history in Black and brown tongues? This talk attends to the historiographical, political, and methodological questions involved in writing about trans femininity as a category with a history, challenging many of the conventions of queer studies, trans studies, and the history of sexuality.

Jules Gill-Peterson is an associate professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of Histories of the Transgender Child (2018), winner of a Lambda Literary Award and the Children's Literature Association Book Award. She is also a General Co-Editor of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly.