WGS 2800 Introduction to Transgender Studies

This course provides a general introduction to the emerging, multidisciplinary field of transgender studies. Adopting a holistic framework that views the development of gender identity and expression as a complex dialogue between biology and culture, it challenges the hegemonic artifice of a “natural” binary opposition between female/male & woman/man. Citing current, historical and cross-cultural examples of individuals and communities who destabilize prevailing sex/gender norms the course critiques how societies react to the presence of “other” gender identities, embodiments and expressions. The course also reviews the recent increase in trans-visibility and advocacy, and the ensuing challenges to legal, medical and social norms and attitudes predicated on the existence of only two kinds of gendered persons.

3.0