Welcome to Dr. Bettcher’s seminar, Trans Feminism. If you are interested, you are welcome to “take this course” online. Follow the syllabus, engage in the readings, and if you have comments or questions, Dr. Bettcher will address them on this page.

To obtain copies of the readings, please send an email to us at LearningTrans@gmail.com with LEARNING TRANS TRANSFEMINISM COURSE in the subject line and we will get them to you.

Introduction to Trans Feminism:

Transgender Studies meets Feminist Theory

Office Telephone (323) 343-4179 | Email tbettch@calstatela.edu

all videos will be available on Vimeo

Course Description

This course is an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of transgender studies from a trans feminist perspective.

Some of questions we examine include: What are transgender studies and how do they differ from other forms of scholarship? What is the relationship between trans and feminist politics and theory? What is trans feminism? Is it even possible? How should transphobia be theorized? What is a woman? What is a man? Is there a “sex-gender” distinction? What is the nature of gendered personhood?

Texts

Email Dr. Bettcher to obtain the texts. The entry “Feminist Perspectives on Trans Issues” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy will figure prominently in the course. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-trans/

Course Plan

Week One

Welcome, Course Overview, “Trans 101”, Trans Terminology. Readings: “Terminology” in Section 1” of “Feminist Perspectives.” Note: this class didn’t get recorded.There was just a Trans 101 mini-lecture. If you need that information, please contact Dr. Bettcher

Intro to Trans Studies. Readings Stryker “(De)Subjugated Knowledges”, Stryker “Transgender Studies: Queer Theory’s Evil Twin”, Hale “Suggest Rules for Non-Transsexuals”

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

Week Two

The Transsexual Phenomenon. Readings: Benjamin (from The Transsexual Phenomenon) “The Symphony of the Sexes”, “Transvestism, Transsexualism, Homosexuality”, “NonSurgical Management of Transsexualism” (pp, 53-4), Bettcher “The Transsexual Phenomenon” Section 2 of “Feminist Perspectives.”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

The Transsexual Empire. Readings: Raymond “Sappho by Surgery”, Radicalesbians “The Woman Identified Woman”, Bettcher “The Transsexual Empire” Section 3 of “Feminist Perspectives.”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2

Week Three

The Empire Strikes Back. Stone “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto”, Haraway “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”, Bettcher “The Empire Strikes Back” Section 4 (to 4.2) in “Feminist Perspectives.” Optional: Anzaldúa “La concienca de la mestiza/Towards a New Consciousness”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2

The Transgender Paradigm: Bornstein “The Other Question”, Feinberg “Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come”, Bettcher “The Transgender Paradigm” Section 4.3 in “Feminist Perspectives.”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

Week Four

The Queer Moment: Butler “Imitation and Gender Insubordination”, Namaste “Tragic Misreadings: Queer Theory’s Erasure of Transgender Subjectivity”, Bettcher “(Trans) Gender Trouble” Section 5 in “Feminist Perspectives” (up to Section 5.3, but skip the discussion of Prosser)

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

Feminism in the Butch/FTM Borderlands. Lugones “’Playfulness, ‘World’-travelling, and Loving Perception”, Hale “Tracing a ghostly memory in my throat: Reflections on Ftm feminist voice and agency”, Bettcher “Butch/FTM Border Wars and Border Zone Dwellers” Section 7 (7.0, 7.1, 7.3) in “Feminist Perspectives.”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

note about this week: We fell behind schedule, and consequently, the 04/29 lecture was a continuation of this discussion. Our plan is to catch up by the beginning of May.

Week Five

Trans Feminism: Crenshaw “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex”, Koyama “The Transfeminist Manifesto”, Koyama “Whose Feminism is it Anyway”; Bettcher “Trans/Feminist Manifesto” in Section 10 (to end of 10.1) of “Feminist Perspectives.”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

note about this week: This is a continuation of the previous weeks readings. We are posting the videos as they were given, and listed in the syllabus, but we hope that we get caught up by the end of this week.

Trans Feminism (Continued): Heyes “Feminist Solidarity After Queer Theory”, Serano “Putting the Feminine Back Into Feminism”, Bettcher “Gender as Relational” in Section 8.2 and “Trans Woman Manifesto” in Section 8.3 of “Feminist Perspectives.”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

Week Six

Violence against Trans People: Namaste “Gender Bashing”, Interview with Mirha-Soleil Ross, Lamble “Retelling Racialized Violence, Remaking White Innocence”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2

Transphobia: Bettcher “Transphobia”, Bettcher “Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers”, Lewis “Of Lady-killers and ‘Men Dressed As Women’”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

Week Seven

Transgender Rights: A Critique: Namaste “Against Transgender Rights”, Spade “What’s Wrong with Trans Rights?”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

Ethnomethodology: Garfinkel “Passing and the Managed Achievement of Sex Status in an ‘Intersexed’ Person” (read pp. 58-71, pp. 81-2 “Review of Management Devices”; pp. bottom of p. 86 starting “Agnes, the Practical Methodologist” to end p. 92), Kessler and McKenna “The Primacy of Gender Attribution” (pp. 1-12); “Towards a Theory of Gender (focus on pp. 151-167).

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2

Week Eight:

Ethnomethodology (Continued): West and Zimmerman “Doing Gender”; Schilt and Westbrook “Doing Gender, Doing Heteronormativity”

Class cancelled so students could attend a lecture on LGBT Immigration

Intimacy and Personhood. Bettcher “Full-Frontal Morality”, Bettcher “Trans Women and ‘Interpretive Intimacy.’ Optional: Bettcher “Trans Women and the Meaning of ‘Woman’”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

Week Nine

Phenomenology: Prosser “A Skin of One’s Own”; Bettcher “Trans Critiques of Butler” Section 5.3 (only Prosser), “No Place like Home” Section 7.2 of “Feminist Perspectives”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

Phenomenology: Salamon, “The Bodily Ego and the Contested Domain of the Material”; Bettcher “The Phenomenology of Trans Embodiment” in Section 9 of “Feminist Perspectives”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

Week Ten

Bettcher “Trapped in the Wrong Theory”

lecture videos: PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

NOTE: I reserve the right to change the course plan and the course requirements when it is in the best interests of the students to do so.