Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility (Critical Anthologies in Art and Culture)

About this book

Essays conversations and archival investigations explore the paradoxes limitations and social ramifications of trans representation within contemporary culture. The increasing representation of trans identity throughout art and popular culture in recent years has been nothing if not paradoxical. Trans visibility is touted as a sign of a liberal society but it has coincided with a political moment marked both by heightened violence against trans people (especially trans women of color) and by the suppression of trans rights under civil law. Trap Door grapples with these contradictions. The essays conversations and dossiers gathered here delve into themes as wide-ranging yet interconnected as beauty performativity activism and police brutality. Collectively they attest to how trans people are frequently offered doorsentrances to visibility and recognitionthat are actually traps accommodating trans bodies and communities only insofar as they cooperate with dominant norms. The volume speculates about a third term perhaps uniquely suited for our time: the trapdoor neither entrance nor exit but a secret passageway leading elsewhere. Trap Door begins a conversation that extends through and beyond trans culture showing how these issues have relevance for anyone invested in the ethics of visual culture. Contributors Lexi Adsit Sara Ahmed Nicole Archer Kai Lumumba Barrow Johanna Burton micha crdenas Mel Y. Chen Grace Dunham Treva Ellison Sydney Freeland Che Gossett Reina Gossett Stamatina Gregory Miss Major Griffin-Gracy Robert Hamblin Eva Hayward Juliana Huxtable Yve Laris Cohen Abram J. Lewis Heather Love Park McArthur CeCe McDonald Toshio Meronek Fred Moten Tavia Nyongo Morgan M. Page Roy Prez Dean Spade Eric A. Stanley Jeannine Tang Wu Tsang Jeanne Vaccaro Chris E. Vargas Geo Wyeth Kalaniopua Young Constantina Zavitsanos