This post is about an interview Petra Dierkes-Thrun
did with Susan Stryker in 2014.
Much of this interview is about Stryker’s creation of a transgender
studies program at the University of Arizona and her launching of the Transgender Studies Quarterly. These
parts reference many of the points she made in the introduction to the Transgender Studies Reader which I
discussed in a previous post, so I won’t get into that too much. The portion of
this interview that I found significant was the discussion about what queer and
trans studies share and how they differ. One of the major differences between
these two areas of study that Stryker discusses is queer studies’ reliance on
the gender binary to create the confines of hetero and homosexual relationships.
Stryker states that “it has been very difficult to think of the human without
thinking of it through the binary gender schema” (7) and she connects society’s
reliance on the binary gender system and having an easily identifiable gender being
central to our ideas of humanity, to why trans people face so much violence. Therefore,
since trans individuals don’t fit into most people’s ideas of gender, they don’t
fit into their ideas of human “and thus [are] lower on the animacy hierarchy. .
.therefore more expendable and less valuable than humans” (7). This connection
between the gender binary and violence against trans people is huge to me. Most
of the world sees gender as this innate thing that is determined by the sex
that is assigned to us at birth, but in reality, it is a system that we have
created, and not only that, but it is a system that is used as a justification to
harm those who do not fit into it. This is significant to me because I think it
is important that people learn about the very real consequences of the gendered
society that we have built.
Though this difference between queer and trans
studies is worth noting, Stryker does see similarities between these areas of
study, specifically how the word “queer” has evolved. It has gone from being a
slur for homosexuality, to something that the queer community has reclaimed and
now encompasses a range of “different differences” that cover non-normative
ways of seeing and discussing “sex, sexuality, identity, and embodiment” (7-8).
This mimics her statement that trans studies does not merely cover sexuality,
but also “questions of gender, bodily differences, health care provisions,
technology studies” and more (8). Stryker sees the broad expanses that trans studies
cover because these are all questions that are vital in the life of a trans
person. This statement could be seen as a call to queer studies to broaden its
reach as these areas also effect the lives of queer people. However, I would
argue that the insistence to pit queer and trans studies against each other that
underlies this discussion is a mistake. The major takeaway from Stryker’s comments
should be that trans studies has a lot to say and they are opening, instead of
closing, any boundaries around it, and they invite queer studies to join them in
their inclusivity.
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