Trans Studies in the Long Nineteenth-Century Americas

This special issue navigates the messy terrain of doing historical work around gender nonconformity before such gender defining terms existed. By bringing the nineteenth-century Americas into critical conversation with Trans Studies, the issue addresses questions of the periodization of trans history, the politics of naming and gendered language, trans and its relationship to identity, as well as trans embodiment and racialization. In turn, by orienting trans studies toward the early Americas, the volume pressures the relatively modern analytical limits of trans studies and opens new opportunities for trans studies scholarship to address the complexity of layered colonialities, the biopolitics of slavery, and the intersections of transnational intimacies.

Contributors: Jesse Alemán, Tania Libertad Balderas, Eagan Dean, Mag De Santo, Francisco J. Galarte, Ren Heintz, Bernadine Marie Hernández, Greta LaFleur, Andrés Mendieta, M. A. Miller, Cheryl Morgan, Sata Prescott, Christofer A. Rodelo, Sky Syzygy, Margarita Vaysman, Tennessee June West, Xavier Rashaad Williams, Xine Yao, William‑Claire Younts