Transnational Perspectives on Gender and Sexuality (341-0-21)
Topic
Universal Trans Rights and Medical Practices
Instructors
Jillana B Enteen
847/491-4337
Crowe 1-113
Office Hours: by appointment
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-435: Mon, Wed 9:30AM - 10:50AM
Overview of class
This course is situated at the intersection of theoretical, cultural, and medical discourses concerning trans* rights and bodies in several national contexts. Of particular interest will be the notion of universal trans rights, as recently articulated in UN Documents arguing that trans rights are human rights, against the backdrop of Gender Affirmation Surgery (GAS) as it is presented in medical literature, advertised on the world wide web, and practiced both domestically and via the international medical tourism industry. Using "Trans" theories: transgender, transnational, translation, spatio/temporal transitions, we will discuss the intersections, dialogues, refusals, and adoptions when thinking about the language of human rights and medical intervention. We will examine cultural/historical conceptions of sex and genders as well as debates concerning bodies and diagnosis that took place during the drafting of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) and International WPATH Standards of Care, among others. Comparative cultural studies, medical discourses, and an archive of web images offering Trans-related surgeries in both Western and, specifically, Thai contexts will serve as axes for investigating this topic.
Learning Objectives
This class fulfills the Ethics and Evaluative Thinking Foundational Discipline, the Global Perspectives Overlay on power, justice, and equity, and the Advanced Expressions Overlay.
The Ethics and Evaluative Thinking Foundational Courses are designed to foster the intellectual autonomy students will need to thrive as thinkers and agents in an increasingly complex world.
Students will:
• Attain the conceptual tools needed to recognize and understand prescriptive issues, questions, and claims, and to distinguish them from descriptive issues, questions, and claims
• Identify the values presupposed by an outlook or discourse
• Recognize the complexity of many ethical issues and consider a variety of alternative resolutions and the reasons for holding them
• Appreciate the insights available in one or more intellectual or cultural traditions
• Reflect upon one's own answers to evaluative questions, the presuppositions informing them, and the reasons for supporting them
• Engage in respectful, rigorous and constructive dialogue concerning evaluative issues and communicate thoughtfully and clearly about them For the Global Perspectives Overlay, this course will address the geographic and environmental conditions, historical and present social and political structures, linguistic and cultural formations of groups and individuals primarily outside the United States, focusing on the interaction among cultures. Students will:
• Engage with scholarship describing the historical and contemporary structures, processes, human-environment relationships, and practices that shape global intercultural relations among groups, cultural traditions, and/or nations, focusing primarily on those outside the United States.
• Explore the social, political, environmental, and cultural bases of these groups, traditions, and/or nations, and how they constitute themselves and are constituted by others.
• Generate the knowledge and develop the skills necessary to grapple with key issues. The following list of possible issues is not intended to be exhaustive but illustrative: appropriation, art, borders, colonialism, diaspora, diplomacy, education, empire, the environment, ethnicity, exploration, health, indigeneity, immigration, migration, nationality, refugees, cultural reception, sustainability, statelessness, travel, and war. • Analyze how these and other terms intersect and overlap, with attention to the dynamism and variety of experiences and expressions. For the Advanced Expressions Overlay, students will:
• Understand and emulate field-specific conventions and protocols for communicating findings to a range of audiences
• Develop the relationship between their voice and field-specific norms of expression, aiming to achieve control over persuasive rhetoric.
Learning Objectives are met through a Social and Behavioral Sceince model focusing on Three Axes:
1. Comparative Culture. How sex/gender system in other countries, particularly Thailand is/was historically different than what we take as normal. How queer and trans theory have positioned trans bodies. Issues of SRS/GAS/ medical tourism in Thailand.
2. Data and Digital Imaging. Using visualization and analysis of websites to understand how we see digital images and texts and how that informs both our understanding of the process, its surrounding medical and legal issues and the interplay of cultures.
3. Medical-Juridical. Medical, legal and policy issues at the US and transnational level concerning transnational tourism, transgender positionings, Standards of Care (WPATH) and different legal forces including UN and UNDP.
Teaching Method
Class Participation, Case studies, writing assignments, data visualization presentations, a final analysis using the Axes of course objectives.
Evaluation Method
Attendance, class participations, midterm presentation, peer assessment, final research presentaton and paper
Class Attributes
Global Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity