Trans Philosophy

2024
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Perry Zurn, Andrea J. Pitts, Talia Mae Bettcher, and PJ DiPietro, Editors

Establishing trans philosophy as a unique field of inquiry, offering tools for our quest toward a more just and equitable world

Trans Philosophy defines this burgeoning and polymorphous discipline as philosophical work that is accountable to and illuminative of cross-cultural and global trans experiences, histories, and cultural productions. Centering the contributions of trans and gender-nonconfirming philosophers, the contributors address discrimination, embodiment, identity, language, and law.

Trans Philosophy defines this burgeoning and polymorphous discipline as philosophical work that is accountable to and illuminative of cross-cultural and global trans experiences, histories, and cultural productions. Across language and politics, feminism and phenomenology, and decolonial theory, it addresses trans worldmaking in all its beauty and mundanity.

Critically, the editors center the contributions of trans and gender-nonconforming philosophers from around the globe. Showcasing work from a range of emerging and established voices, Trans Philosophy addresses discrimination, embodiment, identity, language, and law, utilizing diverse philosophical methods to attend to significant intersections between trans experience and class, disability, race, nationality, and sexuality.

At a time when trans-exclusionary views are gaining traction in politics as well as philosophy, this volume urgently redraws the contours of trans discourse, centering the wisdom already generated in trans and other gender-disruptive communities.

Contributors: Megan Burke, Sonoma State U; Robin Dembroff, Yale U; Marie Draz, San Diego State U; Che Gossett, U of Pennsylvania; Ryan Gustafsson, U of Melbourne; Stephanie Kapusta, Dalhousie U; Tamsin Kimoto, Washington U, St. Louis; Hil Malatino, Pennsylvania State U and Rock Ethics Institute; Amy Marvin, Lafayette U; Marlene Wayar.

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Perry Zurn is associate professor of philosophy at American University. He is author of Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry and How We Make Each Other: Trans Poetics at the Edge of the University and coeditor of Curiosity Studies: A New Ecology of Knowledge.

Andrea J. Pitts is associate professor of comparative literature at the University at Buffalo. They are author of Nos/Otras: Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Multiplicitous Agency, and Resistance and coeditor of Theories of the Flesh: Latinx and Latin American Feminisms, Transformation, and Resistance.

Talia Mae Bettcher is professor of philosophy at California State University, Los Angeles. She is author of Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy (Minnesota, 2025); Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit: Consciousness, Ontology, and the Elusive Subject; and Berkeley: A Guide for the Perplexed.

PJ DiPietro is associate professor of women’s and gender studies and director of the LGBTQ studies program at Syracuse University. They are author of Sideways Selves: The Decolonial Politics of Transing Matter across the Américas and coeditor of Speaking Face to Face: The Visionary Philosophy of María Lugones.

Contents

Introduction: Situating and Desituating Trans Philosophy

Perry Zurn, Andrea J. Pitts, Talia Mae Bettcher, and PJ DiPietro

Part I. Metaphilosophy, Categories, and Kinds

What Is Trans Philosophy?

Talia Mae Bettcher

Reimagining Transgender

Robin Dembroff

Replicating Gender: Reflections on Gender Concepts, Gender Kinds, and History

Stephanie Kapusta

Laughing at Trans Women: A Theory of Transmisogyny

Amy Marvin

Part II. Embodiment, Materiality, and Phenomenologies of Flesh

Thinking Trans Embodiment: On Contingent “Home” and Trans Fatigue

Ryan Gustafsson

“I Look Too Good Not to Be Seen”: Multiple Meaning Realism and Sociosomatics

PJ DiPietro

The Art(s) of Ecstasy: Black Trans Art in the Afterlife of Slavery

Che Gossett

Part III. Temporality, Technicity, and Bioethics of Becoming

Genealogies of Trans Technicity

Hil Malatino

Misgendering as Temporal Capture

Megan Burke

Sylvia Rivera and the Fight against Carceral Medicine

Andrea J. Pitts

tRacing Face: A Racial Genealogy of Beauty

Tamsin Kimoto

Part IV. Politics, Institutions, and World-Making

Scatter: A Trans/Crip Analytic

Perry Zurn

The Racializing Work of Biological Sex

Marie Draz

Latin American Travesti/Trans Theory

Marlene Wayar

Acknowledgments

Contributors

Index