There are a lot of reasons I want to point writers and readers toward the video of Staking Our Claim: Trans Women’s Literature in the 21st Century. Hosted by the Barnard Center for Research on Women and sponsored in part by Topside Press, the event brought together Ryka Aoki, Imogen Binnie, Donna Ostrowsky, Red Durkin, and moderator Reina Gossett. Readings by the individual authors can also be accessed here.
A good portion of the discussion moves through the liberatory and artistic possibilities opened up when trans women gain greater access to publishing and literary venues, and similarly on the way that expectations from cisgender readers, editors, and publishers have historically placed restrictions on what literature by transgender writers can become.
The panel itself, of course, is an example of these possibilities being opened up. It is incredibly rare to hear trans women sharing ideas about literature in a group—I can think of very few times I have been lucky enough to experience this in my life, and can think of even fewer examples that have been archived as this has. Similar conversations have, of course, occurred, in homes and bars and restaurants and parks, but not in venues made public and celebrated.
What I find especially exciting (and a direct result of accessing these new possibilities) is the conversation about genre and memoir that occurs. Memoir, as the panelists note, has been one of the only publishing venues open to trans writers, and as such many available narratives by trans people are written to explain and normalize trans lives to cisgender audiences. As Red Durkin notes, however, the question “What is a trans narrative that isn’t a transition narrative?” (that is, what is a narrative that doesn’t progress along the normalized story of transition from one gender to another) opens up an entirely new set of questions and literary possibilities.
The writers approach these questions in subtle ways, and of course are not always in complete agreement with one another. They touch on how contemporary technology and media allow readers to perform immediate, basic research, and how that in turn can release writers from the perceived obligation to explain aspects of marginalized experiences. They talk about how memoir as a default genre in turn creates a set of default experiences and narratives, as well as the complex structures of power that encourage writers to tell our own stories, the stories of others, or no stories at all. Genres allow particular forms of knowledge, and this in turn has myriad political, social, and literary implications.They also talk about memoir as possibility, as potential.
The panel is inherently valuable in its celebration of trans women writers, but that value is not limited, to paraphrase Durkin’s point, to the value of the transition narrative. Despite how many conversations I have had about memoir and nonfiction genres, I have never encountered these exact ideas, ideas that radicalize, shift, and deepen my understanding of how genre works. Do yourself a favor—watch the panel, listen to the work of these important writers, and support trans literature.