The Affective Politics of Care in Trans Crowdfunding

Abstract

Trans-for-trans crowdfunding is a common strategy to raise money both for gender-affirming medical care and for survival expenses related to living in a transphobic world. Although crowdfunding is infrequently successful in funding our survival needs, there have been few attempts to theorize what this form of mutual aid accomplishes. The objective of this article is to explore the possibilities and limits of trans crowdfunding as part of a critical trans political project. Drawing on the emergent body of scholarship in trans care and the cultural sites in which t4t crowdfunding circulates, this article asks: how does thinking about trans crowdfunding as an affect, labor, and politics of care help us understand its utility, even in the face of its failures to redistribute wealth and meet our material needs? The author argues that trans crowdfunding functions as a form of “complicit care” that simultaneously furthers both our marginalization and our collective liberation.