21st Century Trans Theory and Culture: How Did We Get Here, What’s Next, What’s Up

TIME magazine dubbed 2014 the year of the “trans tipping point.” The issue—which featured actress Laverne Cox on the cover, making her the first trans person on a TIME cover—argued that, one year after the Supreme Court had approved gay marriage, “another civil rights movement is poised to challenge long-held cultural norms and beliefs… \\\\\\[Trans people\\\\\\] are emerging from the margins to fight for an equal place in society.”

The TIME article traffics in what would become hallmark contradictions of liberal media’s trans coverage. Trans people are cast as a minority population, while transness is described as a contagion, threatening to bodysnatch America’s youth and drain its healthcare funding. Transition is therefore both newsworthy and clickbait, a gimmicky grab for undeserved attention. Almost like national anxieties about trans people as scammers overlap with anxiety that digital media is a scam.

How did we get here?

This class will analyze 1) how the state is trying to “become cisgender,” and how that makes trans people new sites of extractive abandonment via techniques of punishment and austerity which were previously reserved for POC; 2) how the development of “trans” as news item is entangled with the decline of the digital media economy across the 2010s; and 3) how theory and cultural production assisted and resisted these processes.

While our classes will focus on the twenty-first century, our reading list spans a much wider historical scope. Reading materials will be provided for, and the class will culminate in a collectively written bibliography.

Registration:
This course is offered at a sliding scale. If you are financially stable and/or have disposable income, please consider selecting the Pay-It-Forward rate to subsidize our sliding scale tiers. Payment plans are also available.

- Sliding Scale 1: $90 ($15 per class)
- Sliding Scale 2: $150 ($25 per class)
- Sliding Scale 3: $210 ($35 per class)
- Sliding Scale 4: $270 ($45 per class)
- Pay-It-Forward: $300 ($50 per class)

Registration closes on Wednesday, 3/8! If you're interested in a payment plan, please email ienna@maydayspace.org.

Format:
This class is HYBRID (in-person at Mayday, with a virtual component for remote attendees) and meets for 6 sessions between March 12th to April 22nd. Most classes are Sundays from 4pm to 6pm, with the exception of the final class on Saturday, April 22nd. The schedule is below:

- Sunday, March 12th
- Sunday, March 18th
- Sunday, March 26th
- Sunday, April 2nd
- No class during the week of April 9th
- Sunday, April 16th
- Saturday, April 22nd

You are welcome to attend in-person or via Zoom. We will also have a class Discord, which we’ll use to archive readings and facilitate discussion in between classes.

We will have readings for each week, but to quote Beatrice Adler-Bolton, “You never have to do the reading to attend reading group. The reading is just a jumping off point.” And she’s right: the aim isn’t for anyone to feel guilt, or like they’re really having to work, or like they have nothing to offer. Everyone is the expert of their life; everyone has something to offer. So just come chill :)

About the instructor:
Charlie Markbreiter is The New Inquiry's Managing Editor. He is currently getting a PhD at the CUNY Graduate Center. His first book, Gossip Girl Fanfic Novella, was published November 2022. He didn't write this. A bot did!