transgender

The Pendulum of Queer History

by Samuel Huneke

As the Republican Party embraces aggressive transphobia as a political wedge issue, there is historical reason to believe that the strategy will provoke organizing, reform, or even revolution for queer liberation. 

The Lesson of Germany's Most Famous Trans Woman? Freedom Requires Joy

by Samuel Huneke

As anti-trans and homophobic legislation and rhetoric pervade the political arena, this Pride month may feel less than celebratory. A historian of queer life under both Nazism and East German Communism says it's a mistake to embrace doom. 

Sports Historian Victoria Jackson: Trans Bans in Sports Part of History of Suspicion toward Women's Sports

Recent state laws regulating the participation of transgender athletes in girls' sports are part of a long history of policing gender in athletics. 

How to Fight Back Against the Right's "Parents' Rights" Moral Panic

by Jennifer Berkshire

Parents' fears about losing control over their children have been the raw material for potent politically-motivated moral panics for a century and more. But those panics aren't irresistible, because parents everywhere still value public schools as democratic community institutions.  

Trans Texans, Fearing Violence Inspired by Legislation and Rhetoric, Look to Armed Self-Defense

Supporters of gender-related legislation deny that they want to eradicate transgender Texans, but members of that community fear that political rhetoric suggesting they are child abusers will encourage vigilantes who are already staging armed protest at LGBTQ events. Like other Texans, many are arming themselves. 

Deconstructing "The Child"

by Jules Gill-Peterson

Since the Victorian era, Anglo-American conceptions of childhood have worked ideologically to place children at risk of harm through the justifying idea of love, and hide the reality that only a tiny percentage of young people experience youth as protected, secure, and nurtured. 

Are Conservative Courts Giving Professors a Right to Mistreat Transgender Students?

by Andrew Koppelman

Under the guise of an expansive view of "religious freedom," courts are enshrining the ability of professors to engage in discriminatory conduct. 

Reactionary Media are Fueling Anti-LGBTQ Violence

by Ben Miller

When the media give a platform to the idea that trans people living in public inherently encourages sexual abuse, violence aimed at removing them from the public will follow. The media need to take responsibility for Colorado Springs and call out icitement to violence. 

"For We Were Strangers": Trans Refugees and Moral Panics

by Gillian Frank

Trans Americans will be increasingly compelled to flee states where laws repress them. What does this refugee crisis share with the past experiences of queer people migrating in search of safety and sexual freedom or women crossing state lines to access abortion? 

Historians Documenting the Lives of Transgender People

Historians like Jules Gill-Peterson argues that the history of transgender people is often hiding in plain sight, and contains as many moments of joy as of discrimination or misunderstanding. 

School Privatizers are Carrying the Culture War Banner

Moral panics are proving useful for a right-wing agenda of undermining public trust in public education; America's oligarchs are stoking them, argues a school social worker. 

"Two-Spirit" Visibility and the Year Activists Rewrote History

by Gregory D. Smithers

In 1990, a group of Native activists coined the term "Two-Spirits" to encompass a variety of people who embodied masculine and feminine traits in indigenous communities, replacing colonizers' terminology that emphasized shame or deviance. Marginalized communities change their history by changing who tells their story, and how. 

Visible Activism Key to Protecting Trans People From Discriminatory Laws

by Shay Ryan Olmstead

The legal strategies that LGBT groups have used to defend their rights and dignity in society may be less effective with hard-right judges on the bench. Direct action and activism outside the courts will be needed to make sure that the right doesn't use the law to target trans people for political gain. 

The Right's Political Attack on LGBTQ Americans Escalates

Historians discuss the escalating attacks on LGBTQ Americans. 

Disney Controversy Puts Right-Wing Children's Entertainment Industry in Spotlight

by Nicole Hemmer

A growing array of conservative children’s literature and programming coincides with right-wing attacks on schools and children’s entertainment that conservatives claim are sites of political and sexual indoctrination.

While "Anti-Grooming" Rhetoric Seems to Come from the Fringe, it Can be Influential

by Mical Raz and Paul M. Renfro

The latest culture war battle revives historical efforts to use the law to institutionalize the slander that LGBTQ people pose an inherent danger to children and families. 

Caught on Tape: North Texas School Superintendent Orders Removal of Transgender, LGBTQ Themed Books

"[Superintendent Jeremy Glenn] noted that members of Granbury’s school board — his bosses — were also very conservative. And to any school employees who might have different political beliefs, Glenn said, 'You better hide it'."

Texas's Anti-Transgender Policies Erase the State's Indigenous Transgender History

by Gregory D. Smithers

The prominent role of what would now be called transgender individuals in indigenous societies in Texas was part of the justification Europeans claimed to colonize the land; students compelled to learn Texas history in school could learn a much more inclusive set of stories. 

Targeting the Marginalized for Political Gain is Nothing New in Texas Politics

by Nancy Beck Young

Minority groups have often had a perilous existence in Texas, but that hasn't stopped politicians from attacking them as dire threats to the state's moral fabric. 

We, The Abuser State

by Jules Gill-Peterson

Texas's announcement of a policy defining some support for transgender youth as "child abuse" echoes the abuses of colonial authorities on gendered minority groups.