Trans* Anthropology - Episode 01

:) trans* anthropology episodes 01: the introduction :)

globally there are, both currently and historically, countless examples of people who's gender identity or gender expression exist outside of the western gender binary. some of these identities snd experiences are individual, while others are named and societally defined groups of gender variant people. this project is a series of zines focusing on these groups in an effort to both lay the groundwork for a comprehensive trans* anthropology, and to understand how gender and gender identities are culturally and socially defined.

the purpose of this project isn't to equate the experiences of any of the groups that are named with the experiences of modern day western transgender people. As Mohammed Elnaiem said in their article “The ‘Deviant’ African Genders That Colonialism Condemned” "It would be anachronistic to call these ways of being 'transgender.' That would be to retrofit them into gender categories that we use in the twenty-first century. But the theological frustration with deviance and sodomy that was often used to repress them is familiar today." our experiences are linked not because we experience the world the same way, but because of the theological frustration which threatens our very existence.

this episode is mostly an introduction that defines basic concepts such as gender, sex, and anthropology, and explains where the asterisk comes from in "trans* anthropology". i also explain why i'm doing this project, the language that i'm using, and what to expect from future episodes.

:) feel free to start from episode 02 if you just want to read about the groups of people :)