Susan Stryker, a founding figure and prominent academic in the field of transgender studies, will visit McGill Oct. 5 to deliver the annual public lecture for the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies (IGSF).She will speak on her latest book, Changing Gender: The History and Future of a Concept, published in August.
“In a moment of heightened anti-trans sentiment in North America and beyond, the IGSF is honoured to hear from a pathfinding trans studies scholar,” said Miranda Hickman, Director of the IGSF and Associate Professor in the Department of English.
“Her work speaks to this moment of anxiety, precarity and fear in an affirmative way that’s deeply informed by research, scholarship and history.”
The lecture is part of McGill’s annual Queer History Month celebrations.
A discipline that ‘continues to shift and change’
Stryker is Professor Emerita of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona. She served as Director of the LGBT+ Institute and co-founded a scholarly journal, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. She is currently a distinguished visitor at Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research.
Sahar Sadjadi, who conducts research on gender and sexuality studies, has followed her work closely.
“Stryker has done quite significant work both in and outside academic in founding what we now call transgender studies,” said Sadjadi, an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. “Some of her early essays are now considered foundational texts in the field.”
Those words were echoed by Jayne Malenfant, an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education with expertise on gender diversity and 2SLGBTQIA+ subjects.
“This is someone who’s been leading transgender studies for a while now,” said Malenfant. “For McGillians interested in this topic, Susan Stryker’s work is an anchor to begin exploring the discipline as it continues to shift and change.”
On Changing Gender
Stryker’s new publication traces the political and intellectual history of the gender concept, tracing it from its roots in ancient grammar to 20th-century culture wars.
Malenfant hasn’t yet had the chance to read the book, “but my students have. They’re very excited for the opportunity to connect with an internationally renowned scholar who’s working on an issue impacting so many of our studies and disciplines, and I’m really excited to dig into it.”
Sadjadi has read the book and was struck by its “creativity, intellectual curiosity and breadth of knowledge.
“It engages with an incredibly wide range of disciplines,” said Sadjadi, noting the text touches on sociology and anthropology, fiction and art, as well as Stryker’s personal stories of living as a transgender woman.
“She argues that gender has been different in the past, but it can also be different in the future; the title is Changing Gender and we are the people who can change it.
“It’s a strikingly hopeful book in a time that is very dark for a lot of people.”