Whither Trans Studies?

Abstract

In the face of incisive and important critiques by Andrea Long Chu, Emmett Harsin Drager, Che Gossett, and Eva Hayward, this article proposes that trans studies is a field at a crossroads. It can slide further into irrelevance by continuing to promote trans- as an abstract prefix of crossing, or it can become relevant to trans people by focusing on the material heterogeneity of trans populations, histories, and epistemologies. The article sketches out some of the rich and exciting directions the latter inquiry could take. With reference to particularly generative proposals by graduate students in this issue, it argues that trans and gender-variant life is a more than sufficient basis for the field.