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Why do "second wave" and "trans feminism" rarely get considered together? Challenging the idea that trans feminism is antagonistic to, or arrived after, second wave feminism, Emily Cousens re-orients trans epistemologies as crucial sites of second wave feminist theorising. By revisiting the contributions of trans individuals writing in underground print publications, as well as the more well-known arguments of Andrea Dworkin, this book demonstrates that valuable yet overlooked trans feminist philosophies of sex and gender were present throughout the US second wave. It argues that not only were these trans feminist epistemologies an important component of second wave feminism's knowledge production, but that this period has an unacknowledged trans feminist legacy.
List of contents
1 Introduction: Second Wave Trans Feminism.- Second Wave Feminism.- Trans Women and Men in the US Second Wave.- Trans Feminist Epistemologies.- Second Wave Feminism, Trans Feminism and the Evidence of Experience.- Print Culture in the Second Wave.- Methodology and Organisation.- Bibliography.- 2 The "Women" of Women's Liberation.- Feminism's Scholarly Story.- Women's Liberation in Print.- Margo Schulter's Lesbian Trans Feminism.- Trans Inclusion: From Dialogue to Discord.- Conclusion: The Plurality of the Second Wave.- Bibliography.- 3 Trans Feminist Phenomenology and Politics in the Journal of Male Feminism.- Evolving Taxonomies.- The Emergence of Trans Community Print Culture.- Autobiography and Community Generated Knowledge.- Photography, Autobiography, Epistemology.- Feeling Like a Woman: A Transfeminine Phenomenology of Womanhood.- Femonormativity.- Conclusion: Towards an Archive of Transfeminine Embodiment.- Bibliography.- 4 Andrea Dworkin and the Social Construction of Sex.- Emotion, Experience and Epistemic (In)Credibility.- Andrea Dworkin on Heterosexuality and Gender.- "The Culture of Male-Female Discreteness", or Cisnormativity.- Dworkin: Utopia and "Reality".- Conclusion: Andrea Dworkin's Challenge to Cisgender Ideology.- Bibliography.- 5 The Category of "Sex" Before the Sex Wars.- Second Wave Feminism, Sex and Gender.- Sex and Gender Behind the Sceneso.- The Racial History of Sex and Gender.- Sex, Gender and Disciplinary Development.- Conclusion: From "Trans" to Feminism: The Direction of Travel of Feminism's Key Concepts.- Bibliography.- 6 Conclusion.- Sex, The Second Wave and Not Getting Stuck.- Before: Trans Studies.- Bibliography.
About the author
Emily Cousens is Lecturer in the History of Gender and Sexuality at Birkbeck, University of London. Emily's research is at the intersection of feminist philosophy and trans studies. Emily is particularly interested in the philosophical and political contributions of 1970s radical, queer and trans feminisms, with a focus on the conversations taking place in print.
