Big Hole Energy: Sissification and Feminism's Anal Imaginary Restricted; Files Only

Abstract

The dissertation examines how trans-exclusionary feminism has tethered the trans woman to the pornographic trope of the sissy. Sissification is a forced-feminization fetish in which an ostensibly cis, straight man is “non-consensually” transformed into a girlish “bimbo.” Rather than disavowing a relation between the trans woman and the sissy, the dissertation insists on tarrying with the negativity of sissification in archives of 20^th-century trans* periodicals, pornography, and erotic fiction. In conversation with queer and trans studies, the dissertation shows how legacies of these archival materials differently enable and foreclose forms of erotic gendered subjectivity and persist in haunting trans* cultural production. The dissertation traces this haunting in contemporary fiction by Imogen Binnie, Torrey Peters, and Alison Rumfitt, as well as in criticism and pop culture. As “trans” has become the lynchpin of a sex panic tied to the speculative reproductive futures of gender non-normative children and young adults, it is contentious to reinstall sexuality at the heart of gender-identity discourse. Yet, this dissertation insists it is necessary to confront the messy sexual stuff interlining all gender positions in order to develop an adequate response to anti-trans sentiment.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One: The Sissification of Gender in an Anti-Trans Feminist Imaginary                                                                                                                                

Chapter Two: Icons of Impurity                                                                                      

Chapter Three: Sissy the Archive: Ambivalent Intimacies Between “Sissy” and “Trans” 

Big Hole Energy i.                                                                                        

Big Hole Energy ii.                                                                                                               

Big Hole Energy iii.

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Degree	Ph.D.
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Women's Studies Literature, American Gender Studies
Keyword	transgender fiction queer theory gender identity transgender archives transphobia feminism
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Wilson, Elizabeth A., Emory University
Committee Members	Huffer, Lynne, Emory University Warren, Calvin, Emory University

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