GWS 1550Intro to Trans Studies

Catalog

Prerequisite(s): None General Studies: Social and Behavioral Sciences Students explore contemporary trans studies, centering trans, nonbinary and gender-expansive lives, histories and practices. Students critically engage public debates around trans lives. The course prepares students to enter and contest harmful narratives. Students will engage not only with scholarly texts by trans authors but also with films, memoirs and/or other cultural text that theorize trans lives through lived experience, centering the voices of those most oppressed and targeted trans lives. Students explore concepts that shape how gender is understood, as well as the histories of trans activism and communities. Students examine how law, medicine, politics and cultural representations impact trans lives, and examine how trans people have created movements for liberation. While students focus on US contexts, the course also highlights global and cross-cultural perspectives on gender variant identities and lives. By the end of the course, students will be able to critically engage with key debates and tensions in trans studies, understand the complexity of trans experiences across different contexts, and develop tools for thoughtful advocacy and collaboration in academic, professional and everyday settings.