Introductory description

This module seeks to promote teaching on the historical and contemporary experiences of transgender people. It fosters critical analysis of gender in relation to trans binary and non-binary genders and focuses on the meaning of transgender for everyday social life in a local as well as global context.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week 1 Introduction: Trans Genealogies
Week 2 Feminism to Transfeminism
Weeks 3 Trans Healthcare
Week 4 Trans Activism and Media Representation
Week 5 Figuration and Transgender children
Week 6 reading week
Week 7 Crip Theory
Week 8 Decolonizing Transgender
Week 9 Trans Sexualities
Week 10 Researching Trans, Trans Research

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• The impact of trans as a form of knowledge both theoretically and politically.
• How trans (genderqueer, binary and non-binary trans, agender etc) issues are related to the feminist movement.
• Why trans/feminism offers a global perspective for decentering an anglocentric trans studies and politics
• How multiple forms of oppression converge, intersect and overlap and need to be understood beyond a focus on sexed difference
• How trans research and researching trans are deployed within sociology

Indicative reading list

Adams, N., Pearce, R., Veale, J., Radix, A., Castro, D., Sarkar, A., and Thom, K. C. (2017) ‘Guidance and Ethical Considerations for Undertaking Transgender Health Research and Institutional Review Boards Adjudicating this Research’. Transgender Health, 2(1): 165-175.

Barkin, J. (2017) He’s Always Been My Son: A Mother’s Story about Raising Her Transgender Son London: Jessica Kingsley

Bornstein, K. (1998) ‘My Gender Workbook: How to become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, Or
something else entirely.’ Routledge: New York. London

Bornstein K (1994) Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us. London: Routledge.

Butler, J. (1993) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity: New York: Routledge

Carrera MV, DePalma R and Lameiras M (2012) Sex/gender identity: Moving beyond fixed and ‘‘natural’’ categories. Sexualities 15(8): 995–1016.

Butler, J. (1997) The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in subjection (Stanford, Stanford University Press)

Carrera MV, DePalma R and Lameiras M (2012) Sex/gender identity: Moving beyond fixed
and ‘‘natural’’ categories. Sexualities 15(8): 995–1016.

Davy, Z. (2011) Recognising Transsexuals: Personal, Political and Medico-legal Embodiment, Aldershot: Ashgate

Fae, J. (2018) Transition Denied: Confronting the Crisis in Trans Healthcare London: Jessica Kingsley

Jones, T. (2019) Improving Services for Transgender and Gender Variant Youth: Research, Policy and Practice for Health and Social Care Professionals London: Jessica Kingsley

Halberstam, J. (1994) ‘F2M: The Making of Female Masculinity’ in S.Munt (ed) Dagger: On Butch Women London: Cassell

Halberstam, J. (1998) Female Masculinity. Durham and London: Duke University Press

Iantaffi, A and barker, MJ (2017) How to Understand Your Gender London: Jessica Kingsley

Kane E (2006) ‘No way my boys are going to be like that!’ Parents’ responses to children’ gender nonconformity. Gender & Society 20(2): 149–176. Prosser, J. (1995) ‘No Place like Home: The Transgendered Narrative of Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues. Modern Fiction Studies 41.3-4 p.483-514

Moon LT. (2008) Feeling Queer or Queer Feelings? Radical Approaches to Counselling Sex, Genders and Sexualities. London: Routledge.

Moon, L.T. (2010) Counselling Ideologies: Queer Challenges to Heteronormativity. Farnham: Ashgate

Pearce, R. (2018) Understanding Trans Health: Discourse, Power and Possibility. Bristol: Policy Press.

Pearce, R., Moon, I., Gupta K. and Steinberg, D.L. eds. (2019) The Emergence of Trans: Cultures, Politics and Everyday Lives. London: Routledge.

Plemons, ED (2014) It is as it does: Genital form and function in sex reassignment surgery. Journal of Medical Humanities 35(1): 37-55.

Plemons, ED (2014) Description of sex difference as prescription for sex change: On the origins of facial feminization surgery. Social studies of science 44(5): 657–679.

Plemons, ED (2017) The Look of a Woman: facial feminization surgery and the aims of trans- medicine. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Robinson, K.H. (2013) Innocence, Knowledge and the Construction of Childhood: The contradictory nature of sexuality and censorship in children’s contemporary lives. Routledge: London

Rubin, H (2003) Self-Made Men: Identity and Embodiment Among Transsexual Men. Memphis, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.

Rudacille, D (2005) The Riddle of Gender: Science, Activism, and Transgender Rights. New York: Pantheon Books.

Serano J (2007) Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of
Femininity. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press.

Serano, J (2013) Excluded: Making Feminist and queer movements more inclusive. Seal Press

Schilt, K & Westbrook, L (2009) Doing Gender, Doing Heteronormativity: “Gender Normals”, Transgender people and the social maintenance of heterosexuality. Gender & Society Vol.23 No.4

Stone, S (2006 [1991]) The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto. In The Transgender Studies Reader. Stryker and Whittle, eds. New York: Routledge. pp. 221-235.

Stryker S (1994) My words to Victor Frankenstein above the village of Chamounix: Performing transgender
rage. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 1(3): 237–254.

Stryker, S and Whittle, S (Eds) (2006) The Transgender Studies Reader. London: Routledge

Stryker, S (2008) Transgender History. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.

Stryker, S, P Currah and LJ Moore (2008) Introduction: Trans-, Trans, or Transgender? WSG 36(3/4): 11-22.

Stryker, S and Sullivan, N (2012) King's member, Queen's body: transsexual surgery, self-demand amputation and the somatechnics of sovereign power. In Murray, S., & Sullivan, N. (Eds.). (2012). Somatechnics: queering the technologisation of bodies. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Pp. 49-64.

Vincent, B. (2018) Transgender Health: A practitioners Guide to Binary and Non-Binary Trans Patient care’ London: Jessica Kingsley

Wallerstein. H. (2016) Real Gender: Identity, Loss and the Capacity to Feel Real. Studies in gender and Sexuality http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15240657.2016.1238684

World Professional Association for Transgender Health (2007) Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People. Seventh Version. www.wpath.org

Subject specific skills

knowledge and critical understanding of the development and transformation of understandings of trans

ability to apply underlying concepts and principles outside the context in which they were first studied, including, where appropriate, the application of those principles in an employment context

an understanding of the limits of their knowledge, and how this influences analyses and interpretations based on that knowledge.

Transferable skills

effectively communicate information, arguments and analysis in a variety of forms to specialist and non-specialist audiences and deploy key sociological techniques effectively

the qualities and transferable skills necessary for employment requiring the exercise of personal responsibility and decision-making

Ability to further develop by refining existing skills and acquiring new competences.