TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly Volume 1 Issue 1-2. Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a 21st Century Transgender Studies

by Paisley Currah (Editor), Susan Stryker (Editor)

TSQ aims to be the journal of record for the rapidly emerging field of transgender studies. The inaugural issue, “Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a 21st-Century Transgender Studies,” pays homage to Sandy Stone's field-defining “Posttranssexual Manifesto” and assesses where the field is now and where it seems to be heading. Comprising nearly sixty short essays by authors ranging from graduate students to senior scholars, the issue takes on such topics as biopolitics, disability, political economy, childhood, trans-of-color critique, area studies, translation, pathologization, the state, and animal studies. Some keyword entries resemble encyclopedia articles (sports, psychoanalysis); others are poetic meditations on concepts (capacity, transition); still others offer whimsical and eccentric expositions of words that are more unexpected-and unexpectedly productive (perfume, hips). Some entries pose trenchant resistances to the keyword concept itself. The issue includes a substantive introduction by the editors and serves as a primer for readers encountering transgender studies for the first time.

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer

255 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2014

Reviews

[Arlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great! It's written in short pieces in alphabetical order by keyword. Which is a really cool way to write an academic journal written by a huge team of people. My favourites were transmedia, translation, revolution, Tatume, transition, and childhood. Because the whole thing was written in bite sized excerpts a lot of them repeated the same already familiar gestures over and over and applied them to different topics which got a bit repetitive. But there are some incredible and creative responses to ideas of technology, becoming, relationality, error, promise, legibility, and nature that totally blew my mind. Eva Hayward's 'Transxenoestrogenesis' which I had to learn how to spell three times and might have written off as "too abstract" (like I did with the piece about phenomenology) is a really beautiful piece about the relationship of 'transgender' to ecological destruction, fears of pollution, ruination and upheaval in built environments. I think I'll probably read it a few more times. There's a lot of really cool interrelation between the pieces too, like the two pieces on psychoanalysis, the first referencing and introducing the second. It's really cool to imagine a whole group of trans writers publishing together and referencing each other's work.

I'm taking a star off for the introduction because this is the first ever regular journal of transgender studies, and the introduction could have been a space for some really great commentary on the content, but instead it went into a self-conscious spiral about the criticism the editors got about the fact that they used crowd funding to produce the volume and how they came under critique for buying into neoliberalism and forcing the impoverished trans community to pay for their editing and printing costs. Firstly I feel like every time I read an academic book or essay by a trans person they always feel compelled to apologise for the format and production of their ideas and it's boring. It's most likely a product of that feeling of being the first publication in a field that's inhospitible to your ideas and community, where so few trans people have tenured positions or influence in university press, and therefore having to speak for the whole population (and keep everyone happy). It's a bit patronising. But also I've never heard of anyone having to crowdsource funding for a book when they have a university press as a publisher? It seems worth questioning.

[Elliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually read volume 12 number 1 but it’s not on here!!

very cool stuff, i didn’t read the things i was less interested in but overall so interesting. i especially loved the one about Manhunt, We’re All Going to the Worlds Fair (really need to this movie..) and fog pill

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This inaugural issue of the Transgender Studies Quarterly is a useful introduction to key concepts in the emerging field of transgender studies. Of course, some of the articles are better than others and all of them are limited by the available space. At times, the articles seemed cramped and inconclusive.

I found it most useful when the author provided an extensive list of references for further reading or if they themselves had written a book or longer article about the topic--this at least provides something else to look into if something strikes you. Some of the articles had few or no sources provided at the end and tended to leave me wanting for more without much of an idea of where to find additional information. I also enjoyed the broader concepts more than the very specific and esoteric. Overall, the issue crosses a wide variety of disciplines, making it useful for the transing of a variety of fields.

My favorite was Sandy Stone's discussion of "Guerilla", in which she discusses the emergence of the field as someone intrinsic to it's beginning. Her explanation of the current state of the field and her worries about its future are thought-provoking and enlightening, and her conclusion will hopefully leave you thinking about the future of trans studies and your own involvement in that future.

I would recommend this journal issue for people who are interested in learning more about the field, especially those with little previous knowledge. For the most part, the concepts are well-explained and well-referenced, so they provide a good starting point, and they're provided in short 1-3 page articles to give a brief overview and a quick idea of each topic. The journal issue is also significantly cheaper than purchasing something like Stryker and Whitten's Transgender Studies Reader and the journal issue still provides an excellent overview of the field--and with shorter articles and fewer pages overall.