Fall 2025 - Class Option #2
Gender, Trans, and All That Comes After
Firmly grounded in trans studies, the black radical tradition, and indigenous epistemologies, “Gender, Trans, and All That Comes After” invites students into a conversation about how to think more deeply and rigorously about gender. We will begin with popular uses of “trans” to broaden our definitions of the term in order to consider the most material expressions of gender: the body. We then move through gender’s connection to colonial structures of power, to race, and what is at stake in their abolition. Students will leave the course with a deeper understanding of the complex history of gender; what effect trans, nonbinary, and nonnormative identities have on our understanding of gender; and, ultimately, what might come after gender’s interrogation.
Possible texts/media
Black On Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity, C. Riley Snorton
Transgender History, Susan Stryker
A Nonbinary Life, Marquis Bey
Autonomy and Abolition in Yucatán’s Caste War, S.B. West
“Evil Deceivers and Make Believers,” Talia Bettcher
Prospective field trips may include Defy Gravity’s Trans* Artists Circus Performance, Champaign, IL; Transgender Day of Remembrance Chicago Event; and others.
Instructors
Marquis Bey is Professor of Black Studies and Affiliate Faculty in Gender & Sexuality Studies.
S.B. [Esbi] West (they/them [English]; elle/ella, -a, -e [Spanish]) is Associate Professor of Instruction in Gender & Sexuality Studies and is Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese.