Neither Man Nor Woman: Transgender Ethnographies in Global Context

3 units

This seminar examines transgenderism and gender variance more broadly in a global context that includes, but does not privilege, Western analytical frameworks. We will read ethnographic accounts of gender diversity that complicate Western notions of sex, gender, and sexuality. In particular, we will interrogate the idea of transgenderism as a crossing from one gender to an opposite one (i.e. male to female or female to male), investigate the relationship between gender identity and sexuality, and examine the particularities of local gender forms in cultural context.