I'm compelled to point out the geographical specificity of the emerging narrative of the trans literary renaissance: i.e., it's North American. This isn't your exclusion (I *think* the only non-NA writers in your list are the half a dozen or so of us in We Want It All): it's an exclusion in the socioeconomic conditions of both literature and transness. In that regard, it's notable how many of the trans writers who are of my islands write or move through North America: Roz Kaveney, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Lauren John Joseph, Cat Fitzpatrick... And the dynamic goes both ways: the influence of Rachel Pollack's time in London and Europe on UK trans politics and writing is important. In thinking about this I'd like to of course avoid a periodisation in which transness and its literature happens in North America and then is exported to the rest of the world, which has to catch up -- and yet I also need to find ways of talking about why there is *so little* trans literature in these islands, in at least comparative terms. Though what there is is very good (big shout out to Shola von Reinhold, and I'm always happy to talk about more). Nor do I want to suggest that the power relations between the old empire and the new are a valid goal of, yikes, diversity: better to ask how trans literature is appearing beyond the Anglosphere, how to work through the portals of linguistic and cultural difference, i.e. translation is an urgent task, as is how to move beyond European and settler constructions of transness as our political frame. As one wave in that direction, here's a zine of takatāpui/genderqueer/trans writers from across Aotearoa: https://easterroadpress.wordpress.com/portfolio/this-gender-is-a-million-things-that-we-are-more-than/
Oh, yeah. I'll do you one better: Many/most? of these writers are East Coast-based, and more specific still, New York-based. It's part of why I moved to Brooklyn two years ago, in fact; I knew publication would be easier if I was based here. As I alluded to in the post, these questions of locus and movement and what "renaissance" really means aren't far from my mind. It was actually making me think about revisiting Vivian Namaste, among others. I'm still waiting on my copy of Lote :( But thank you for this zine, I can't wait to read it.
The description of pre-transition (non) life made me gasp. Happy to be in a footnote, but I'm ambiguously an 'older' writer and same 'age' as you in trans years at the same time. Not worthy to be in that footnote's company! There is something going on though, isn't there? There's always precedents, ancestors, and all that, but they never got to publish, but in writerly community, and sell, like is now.
the chaser by Torrey is gone. bummer.
I'm compelled to point out the geographical specificity of the emerging narrative of the trans literary renaissance: i.e., it's North American. This isn't your exclusion (I *think* the only non-NA writers in your list are the half a dozen or so of us in We Want It All): it's an exclusion in the socioeconomic conditions of both literature and transness. In that regard, it's notable how many of the trans writers who are of my islands write or move through North America: Roz Kaveney, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Lauren John Joseph, Cat Fitzpatrick... And the dynamic goes both ways: the influence of Rachel Pollack's time in London and Europe on UK trans politics and writing is important. In thinking about this I'd like to of course avoid a periodisation in which transness and its literature happens in North America and then is exported to the rest of the world, which has to catch up -- and yet I also need to find ways of talking about why there is *so little* trans literature in these islands, in at least comparative terms. Though what there is is very good (big shout out to Shola von Reinhold, and I'm always happy to talk about more). Nor do I want to suggest that the power relations between the old empire and the new are a valid goal of, yikes, diversity: better to ask how trans literature is appearing beyond the Anglosphere, how to work through the portals of linguistic and cultural difference, i.e. translation is an urgent task, as is how to move beyond European and settler constructions of transness as our political frame. As one wave in that direction, here's a zine of takatāpui/genderqueer/trans writers from across Aotearoa: https://easterroadpress.wordpress.com/portfolio/this-gender-is-a-million-things-that-we-are-more-than/
Oh, yeah. I'll do you one better: Many/most? of these writers are East Coast-based, and more specific still, New York-based. It's part of why I moved to Brooklyn two years ago, in fact; I knew publication would be easier if I was based here. As I alluded to in the post, these questions of locus and movement and what "renaissance" really means aren't far from my mind. It was actually making me think about revisiting Vivian Namaste, among others. I'm still waiting on my copy of Lote :( But thank you for this zine, I can't wait to read it.
The description of pre-transition (non) life made me gasp. Happy to be in a footnote, but I'm ambiguously an 'older' writer and same 'age' as you in trans years at the same time. Not worthy to be in that footnote's company! There is something going on though, isn't there? There's always precedents, ancestors, and all that, but they never got to publish, but in writerly community, and sell, like is now.
yeah and i figure trans age as not being linear here <3