Da’Shaun L. Harrison
Author, theorist, and abolitionist

Abstract: Gender, just like health and desire/ability, is a system forged with the purpose of creating and maintaining a class of subjects designed to be inferior to another. Gender roles—and their performances—are implied, but also explicitly named, characteristics and duties one must fulfill to be "man" or "woman." In other words, gender is a performance defined by our commitment to upholding it. And, despite the fact that gender was never created for Black people to have access to, in similar ways to health and desire/ability, Black subjects are socialized to uphold the violence of gender, too, and therefore can reproduce similarly violent gender restrictions or offer ways of resisting the oppression of the gender binary. This talk explores stories with seven fat Black trans people—all of whom are either trans men, transmasculine, or nonbinary—enabling them to tell their own stories to provide the data we so often lack.

Sponsored by the Center for Bioethics & Health Law, with support from the Provost’s Year of Emotional Well-being initiative

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