The Center for Applied Transgender Studies is proud to host the third event in its 2022 Distinguished Lecture Series. Events in the series will feature the Center’s Fellows discussing their own original research with a broad audience of scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and interested laypersons. These events will be virtual, free to attend, and open to the public.

This lecture will be given by Senior Fellow Aniruddha Dutta, and will be entitled “Suturing and Disrupting the State: Indian Trans Activism in the Aftermath of COVID-19.”

Transgender and gender non-conforming people, particularly largely working-class and Dalit (oppressed-caste) communities such as kothis and hijras, are among those hit hardest during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The pandemic has been exacerbated by the policies of the Indian state, which demonstrate an unstable assemblage or conjuncture of neoliberal and developmentalist tendencies, in keeping with long-term systemic patterns in the region. The talk situates contemporary Indian trans activism within the context of the neoliberal-developmentalist assemblage that characterizes governance in contemporary India, and examines the variable ways in which such activism negotiates fractures and contradictions within state apparatuses and modes of governance. Trans communities and activists from varied and unequal class/caste backgrounds engage the state in multiple ways, sometimes bolstering and suturing neoliberal and developmentalist modes of governance and sometimes challenging or undermining them and even playing them against each other. The talk will trace these varied negotiations and analyze how they not only enable the survival of trans-kothi-hijra people through the pandemic but also demonstrate ways in which activists may push back against the state’s simultaneous regulation and neglect of their communities.

The talk will take place from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM Central Daylight Time.

To register for the lecture, visit: https://bit.ly/CATSDL3

The Center for Applied Transgender Studies is proud to host the second event in its 2022 Distinguished Lecture Series. Events in the series will feature the Center’s Fellows discussing their own original research with a broad audience of scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and interested laypersons. These events will be virtual, free to attend, and open to the public.

This lecture will be given by Junior Fellow Florence Ashley, and will celebrate the launch of their new book Banning Transgender Conversion Practices: A Legal and Policy Analysis (University of British Columbia Press, 2022). The event will also include a moderated discussion with Kelley Winters, PhD.

Survivors of conversion practices—interventions meant to stop gender transition—have likened their experiences to torture. In the last decade, bans on these deeply unethical and harmful processes have proliferated, and governments across the world are considering following suit. Florence Ashley’s new book Banning Transgender Conversion Practices: A Legal and Policy Analysis considers the pivotal concerns for anyone studying or working to prevent these harmful interventions. What is the scope of the bans? How do they differ across jurisdictions? What are the advantages and disadvantages of legislative approaches to regulating trans conversion therapy? In answering these questions, Ashley demonstrates the need for affirmative health care cultures and detailed laws. Banning Transgender Conversion Practices centers trans realities to rethink and push forward the legal regulation of conversion therapy.

The talk will take place from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM Central Daylight Time.

To register for the lecture, visit: https://bit.ly/CATSDL2

The Center for Applied Transgender Studies is proud to host the first event in its 2022 Distinguished Lecture Series. Events in the series will feature the Center’s Fellows discussing their own original research with a broad audience of scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and interested laypersons. These events will be virtual, free to attend, and open to the public.

This inaugural lecture will be given by Senior Fellow Austin H Johnson, and will be entitled “Applying Trans Studies, Building Structural Competency: Using Community Based Research to Support Trans Youth in the U.S. Southeast.”

Some estimates place more than 500,000 trans people in the South, making the region home to over one-third of the US trans population. A region with more anti-trans policies and fewer protections for trans people than other areas of the country, the South has become a kind of test kitchen for conservative attempts to enact anti-trans legislation through state and local governments. These policies are aimed at restricting trans people’s access to healthcare, education, recreation, accommodations, and public facilities like restrooms, bathing facilities, and emergency housing.  

This trend peaked last year, as lawmakers around the country, yet concentrated in the South, proposed more anti-trans legislation than in any other year on record. States across the region have also renewed their efforts at legislating so-called “religious exemptions,” attempting to implement pathways for faith-based discrimination against trans people in state-funded service agencies and organizations. In some cases, legislators went so far as to introduce anticipatory restrictions that block and in some cases punish local officials who enact their own protections for trans people in their communities.

In most cases during the 2021 legislative sessions, local organizers across the region blocked these proposals. Yet, we are already witnessing the renewal of this legislative harassment in 2022. Whether they become bills or not, these proposals contribute to a hostile social climate for trans people. Trans youth are especially vulnerable to this legislative harassment, and their experiences of identity related stress are more likely to contribute to increased anxiety, depression, and suicidality. In this presentation, Johnson makes the case for using community-based research to build structural competency among grassroots, non-profit, and public service organizations who are developing interventions to support trans youth in the South.

The talk will take place from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM Central Standard Time.

To register for the lecture, visit: https://bit.ly/CATSDL1