Crystal Labeija, Femme Queens, and the Future of Black Trans Studies

This short essay springs from the question, Why has trans studies sustained a silence around Black elders in general, and Black femme queens in particular? The author reflects on the interventions of current scholars in Black trans studies and their import to the historicization of the house/ball culture or house-structured ballroom scene. Through a Black feminist imperative, this essay calls on trans studies to refuse the necropolitical logics that assume all the progenitors of the ballroom scene have died. In revisiting the rich cultural archive of the house-structured ballroom scene, such as the 1982 film T.V. Transvestite, this article reminds the reader that Black trans studies remains an archeological project.