Beyond the Binary: Transgender and Race (235-0-20)
Instructors
Eli Kean
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-425: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM
Overview of class
This introductory course explores the boundaries and binaries of gender, sexuality, race, and disability. This course will analyze approaches to understanding gender norms and identity categories, as well as consider experiences and contestations beyond these binaries. Particularly through reading trans, non-binary, and genderqueer histories, experiences, and politics, this class will consider the possibilities and problems of categorizing "the beyond." We will discuss shifting conceptualizations of "normal" as it pertains to identity and embodiment, and what is assumed to defy this "normal" as embedded in the intersecting histories and legacies of race, class, sexuality, nationality, and ability. For instance, what is the relationship between race and gender that specifically shapes and forms the boundaries of gender in the United States? What possibilities and realities exist beyond the binaries of straight/gay, Black/white, abled/disabled, citizen/non-citizen? How does power in social, cultural, and political arenas impact these discourses? This course aims to recognize and understand these contested histories through the lens of our current moment.
Learning Objectives
U.S. Overlay Learning Objectives (U.S. Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity)
Students will…
• Explore the experiences of trans identities as affected by context, social status, race, disability, citizenship, and sexuality
• Cultivate the ability to analyze and critique the binaries, boundaries and borders that exist in U.S. society
• Recognize how cultural ideologies and social structures impact the way we perceive ourselves and others
• Articulate the intertwined relationship between race and gender in the United States, with particular attention to experiences and contestations beyond normatively established binaries
• Critique anti-immigration sentiment and its implications for identity formation, especially for queer and trans immigrants
• Articulate connections between gender diversity, settler colonialism, and cis-heteropatriarchy
• Analyze how historical attitudes towards racial passing in the U.S. influence the way gender passing is perceived today
Additional Learning Objectives
Students will…
• Learn to articulate the attributes, identities, orientations that are considered by traditional/mainstream American culture to be a clear binary
• Analyze the effects of socialized understandings of normalcy on the lives of trans, non-binary and genderqueer people
• Develop an appreciation for the in-between, gray areas, liminal space, complexity, and unanswerable questions
• Emphasize embracing one's own experience and uniqueness of being and our capacity for connection
• Recognize how stereotypes and norms within the LGBTQ+ community affect how individuals can inhabit sexual and gender borderlands
• Explore how capitalism's expectations of work and productivity impact the devaluation of disability
• Gain an appreciation for the borderlands and its unique insider/outside perspective: A place of sexual and gender fluidity, a space where identities can change, multiply, and/or dissolve
• Learn how to articulate homonormativity's role in enforcing assimilation, capitalist interests, and consumerism within lesbian & gay spaces
Teaching Method
Discussion-based seminar
Class Materials (Required)
All materials will be available on Canvas
Class Attributes
U.S. Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity
Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Reserved for First Years and Sophomores.