In 1967, after a twin baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment that would alter his gender. The case would become one of the most famous in modern medicine—and a total failure. As Nature Made Him tells the extraordinary story of David Reimer, who, when finally informed of his…
In this “canonical” anthology of Butch-Femme identities, Joan Nestle traces 200 years of lesbian history, from letters to memoirs to short stories. Nestle surveys a decade of the attempt to reconstruct and understand the meaning and value of butch-femme relations for the contemporary lesbian, drawing on oral history, fiction, poetry, and fantasy.
Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn’t hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and…
Our call for papers read: “Trans: -gender, -national, -racial, -generational, -genie, -species. The list could (and does) go on. This special issue of WSQ invites feminist work that explores categorical crossings, leakages, and slips of all sorts, around and through the concept ‘trans-‘.” While gender certainly?perhaps inevitably?remains a primary analytical category for the work we…
“There is something all too obvious about the concept “female masculinity.” When people have asked me over the last few years what I am working on, I have explained quickly to them the concept of this book. Usually I can do it in one or two sentences. I will say, perhaps, “I am writing about…
The Queer Art of Failure is a provocative, hilarious, and insightful study of cultural manifestations of failure that practices exactly what it preaches. Adopting “low theory,”–“a kind of theoretical model that flies below the radar, that is assembled from eccentric texts and examples”, Halberstam does not impose an established theoretical perspective onto her varied materials,…
Department of Radio, Television and Film, the University of Texas at Austin Copyright (c) 1993 by Sandy Stone. This article may be freely distributed through the net except as indicated herein, but may not be reproduced in hardcopy without permission. The Microsoft Network is specifically prohibited from linking to or distributing this work in any…
The following work is a textual adaptation of a performance piece originally presented at “Rage Across the Disciplines,” an arts, humanities, and social sciences conference held June 10-12, 1993 at California State University, San Marcos. The interdisciplinary nature of the conference, its theme, and the organizers’ call for both performances and academic papers inspired me…
Cohen looks at the failed features of queer political activism, as evolved from queer theory, and discusses how intersectionality is the key to not merely ushering in inclusive political activism, but forming collectives based on transformational agendas. In other words, for queer to really do the work, it must transform not just heteronormative oppression, but…
In this pathbreaking work, Jasbir K. Puar argues that configurations of sexuality, race, gender, nation, class, and ethnicity are realigning in relation to contemporary forces of securitization, counterterrorism, and nationalism. She examines how liberal politics incorporate certain queer subjects into the fold of the nation-state, through developments including the legal recognition inherent in the overturning…