State of the Field: Transgender Studies, World Shakespeare Congress, Singapore, 2021

Who is afraid of gender? As we trouble the notion of fixed identities, how do we support trans people for whom claiming a specific gender is crucial to a sense of self and who see gender transition as providing a fixed, even essential, identity? How does scholarship balance the appeals of "instability" with individuals' needs for material or psychological stability, continuity or coherence?
Alexa Alice Joubin argues that the trans lens suspends the unconscious bias in institutionalized cisgender sexism rather than indulge in the suspension of disbelief.
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00:13 Introduction of Joubin
00:52 Stage Beauty transes race and gender
02:04 Queer Theory vs Trans Theory
02:48 Trans lens goes beyond gender studies
03:10 All literature is trans
04:44 Twelfth Night
05:12 Performance space is transitory
06:58 As We Like It
07:49 Throne of Blood
09:26 Why Shakespeare?
11:02 Witches in Macbeth
11:32 "Of woman born" - Macbeth
13:31 Trans performativity
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Cisgender sexism has given privilege to cisgender scholars to claim authenticity and authority, and assumed cis status of characters. We can use the trans lens to open up narratives that were regarded as normative in some way (heteronormative, homonormative, normative gender expressions). The function of the trans lens is one of heuristic rather than diagnostic, because this theory sustains the contingency of characterization without pinning down their gender.
This roundtable highlights a variety of approaches currently animating studies of gender and sexuality in performance studies, queer philology, trans theory, and queer theory.
Organized and chaired by Valerie Traub, this roundtable on Gender and Sexuality: State of the Field features Alexa Alice Joubin, Marjorie Rubright, Madhavi Menon, Judy Celine Ick, and Kumiko Hilberdink-Sakamoto. It was held during the World Shakespeare Congress in Singapore in August, 2021, during the global pandemic of Covid-19.