Critical Intersections Room: Out of Sorts and Sorted Out: Transgender Subjectivity in a Theological Library
Event Type
Lightning Talk
Start Date
25-7-2025 1:15 PM
End Date
25-7-2025 2:00 PM
Description
My presentation explores the intersection of transgender subjectivity and library work during a political milieu in which the futurity of either is fraught, if not precarious. During a week in June of 2024 I underwent a gender-affirming procedure as a trans woman and by the week after had resumed my internship at an academic and theological library. I offer insights into this strange summer in which I navigated my shifting embodiment within an institution that, due to its Christian affiliation, made complex the possibility of my gender expression. Grounding my theorization within the Tagalog word bakla–a term denoting gender or sexually nonconforming individuals in Filipino culture–I discuss my queerness within the frame of my Filipino experience. The Tagalog words babae (girl) and lalaki (boy) are concatenated with a k to create the word bakla. Thus, the term symbolizes and enacts a moving to, through, and between two gender categories, categories which I reflect upon in theorizations upon my academic library experience. Attendant theories regarding temporality, slow librarianship, critical in/access, and others enrich my understanding of the ethical, relational, bureaucratic dimensions of my work to underscore the capacity for the body and the library to change. While change often represents the onset or intensification or marginalization of transgender and gender nonconforming library professionals, my presentation also uplifts the positive transformations that have made my continued engagement with academic librarianship not only possible, but desirable. My research occurs at a juncture during which political initiatives are enfeebling transgender subjects and the power of libraries. Indeed, both affronts may be traced back to a coordinated effort to preclude critical epistemological work. This presentation insists against this anti-knowledge project through its articulation of transness as an animating and meaningful lens through which to theorize the importance of library work.
Outcomes
- Provide insight into the complexity of gender nonconforming and transgender experiences by both library workers and patrons
- Complicate and expand upon how disability and care may or may not manifest at work, and how library practices may change to better accommodate workers and patrons
- Underscore the interrelatedness of disability and transness as modes of marginalized experience that vivify racialized experiences, particularly in libraries
Critical Intersections Room: Out of Sorts and Sorted Out: Transgender Subjectivity in a Theological Library
My presentation explores the intersection of transgender subjectivity and library work during a political milieu in which the futurity of either is fraught, if not precarious. During a week in June of 2024 I underwent a gender-affirming procedure as a trans woman and by the week after had resumed my internship at an academic and theological library. I offer insights into this strange summer in which I navigated my shifting embodiment within an institution that, due to its Christian affiliation, made complex the possibility of my gender expression. Grounding my theorization within the Tagalog word bakla–a term denoting gender or sexually nonconforming individuals in Filipino culture–I discuss my queerness within the frame of my Filipino experience. The Tagalog words babae (girl) and lalaki (boy) are concatenated with a k to create the word bakla. Thus, the term symbolizes and enacts a moving to, through, and between two gender categories, categories which I reflect upon in theorizations upon my academic library experience. Attendant theories regarding temporality, slow librarianship, critical in/access, and others enrich my understanding of the ethical, relational, bureaucratic dimensions of my work to underscore the capacity for the body and the library to change. While change often represents the onset or intensification or marginalization of transgender and gender nonconforming library professionals, my presentation also uplifts the positive transformations that have made my continued engagement with academic librarianship not only possible, but desirable. My research occurs at a juncture during which political initiatives are enfeebling transgender subjects and the power of libraries. Indeed, both affronts may be traced back to a coordinated effort to preclude critical epistemological work. This presentation insists against this anti-knowledge project through its articulation of transness as an animating and meaningful lens through which to theorize the importance of library work.
Outcomes
- Provide insight into the complexity of gender nonconforming and transgender experiences by both library workers and patrons
- Complicate and expand upon how disability and care may or may not manifest at work, and how library practices may change to better accommodate workers and patrons
- Underscore the interrelatedness of disability and transness as modes of marginalized experience that vivify racialized experiences, particularly in libraries
