New Writing and Videos

I have gotten a bit behind at posting new work. Many new things have come out.
normal life cover

First, the new edition of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law is out from Duke University Press. It includes new reflecting on the mainstreaming of trans politics and new cover art by Xylor Jane.

Normal Life was published last month in Spanish from Bellaterra Press. You can find Una Vida Normal here.

In other translations news, I had a wonderful visit to the Center for the Study of Sexualities at the National Central University of Taiwan. My generous hosts translated some of my writing to Mandarin. Here is Chapter 2 of Normal Life, “What’s Wrong with Rights?” in Mandarin. Here is the article I co-authored with Morgan Bassichis and Alex Lee that appears in Captive Genders, “Building an Abolitionist Trans & Queer Movement with Everything We’ve Got” translated to Mandarin. And here is an article with some US trans law basics in Mandarin.

My documentary Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back! (1 hour long) came out in the summer of 2015. You can watch the entire film on the website and you can watch with captions in English, Spanish or Greek captions (Mandarin is coming soon!).

We also made short clips that address particular topics that are easy to share. These include “What is Pinkwashing?” “What is Brand Israel?” and “What is Normalization?”  I put all of these and the full documentary online hoping that people will do free screenings in their own communities and on their campuses. I am happy to report that the documentary has already screened at festivals and community events around the United States and in Canada, Argentina, Japan, Korea, Greece, Holland and in the UK.  It is playing on Cambridge Community Television tomorrow!  You can read a review of the Pinkwashing Exposed in the recent issue of Make/Shift magazine.

Last month, The Scholar and the Feminist Online published a special issue co-edited by Soniya Munshi and Craig Willse, entitled “Navigating Neoliberalism in the Academy, Non-Profits and Beyond.” It is full of great articles and I highly recommend the whole issue. It includes a new article I co-wrote with Dr. Rori Rohlfs called “Legal Equality and the (After?)Math of Eugenics” that looks critically at the proliferation of new statistics about LGBT populations and how they are used in legal reform efforts.  The special issue also includes six more short videos in the series that Hope Dector and I are making as part of our Queer Dreams and Nonprofit Blues project.

Finally, in November I participated in an Oxford Union Debate about whether states should recognize marriage.  It was probably among the most uncomfortable events of my life, not only because I was wearing a tuxedo but also because I was on the “same side” of the debate with a raging zionist and a raging transphobe. Still not sure what to make of all that, but if you want to see what I said, here is the video.

 

 

 

First Edition of Normal Life Back in Print from Duke

Thanks to the hard work of many people at Duke University Press, Normal Life is back in print after the tragic closing of South End Press last summer. Look for a second edition of Normal Life with new writing about pinkwashing, the mainstreaming of trans politics, Chelsea Manning and more this fall from Duke. For now, enjoy the new greener color scheme on the cover of the first edition.

Reviews, news, interviews

Thanks to Dan Irving for a generous review of Normal Life in GLQ and to Rachel Levitt for this review of Normal Life in the inaugural issue of QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking.  I also want to share a new interview that just came out at the Youngist. And finally, thanks to Jordan Flaherty for this excellent Al Jazeera America story about police profiling of trans people. I can’t figure out how to embed the video here so I’m sharing this image of a Trans Day of Action poster that I love instead.

 

 

New video and slideshow

Earlier this year I was invited to share a manifesto at the Tate Museum in London as part of the Gender Talents show. I couldn’t make it, so I made a video with Basil Shadid to capture some of the themes of Normal Life.  The Barnard Center for Research on Women just released the video on their website.

Impossibility Now from BCRW Videos on Vimeo.

The images in it go by quickly so I also made an annotated slideshow that you can watch at your own pace and learn what the images depict. You can also watch the video on youtube to see a version with captions (press CC).

While I was gathering images for the film I got completely stumped a couple times about how to illustrate certain ideas.  Two artists came to my rescue and created powerful images that I needed.

This one is from Mickey Dehn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one is from Talcott Broadhead.

 

New Syllabus, Review, Blogpost and Translation

I’m co-teaching a class this semester with Prof. Katherine Franke about the law of occupation and colonialism.  The class looks at the occupation of Palestine, US colonialism in Guam, Puerto Rico, North America, Hawaii and the Marshall Islands, the US occupation of Iraq, and more.  You can see the syllabus here.

I also wanted to share a new review of Normal Life by Ro Velasquez Guzman in Shameless magazine, and a new blogpost I wrote for SRLP’s blog about how recent debates about gun control and mental health relate to trans politics and criminalization.  Finally, HUGE THANKS to Morgan Ztardust for translating “For Lovers and Fighters” in Spanish.  The translation is here.

Favorite books

Thanks to the owner of the most stylish collection of eyeglasses I have seen, Kate Clinton, for including Normal Life among her favorite books of the year in The Progressive’s “Favorite Books of 2012.” And thanks to the Modern Language Association/GLQ Caucus’s Alan Bray Memorial Book Prize Committee for honorable mention for Normal Life. Such a treat to be recognized alongside this year’s wonderful winners of that prize, Chandan Reddy’s Freedom with Violence and Lauren Berlant’s Cruel Optimism.