He was considered a professional woman impersonator, and would wear women’s clothing to sing and perform under the name Madam Pattirini. Stryker presented examples in history of cross-dressing being acceptable, including Brigham Morris Young, one of Brigham Young’s sons. Trans attaches itself to the name, and pulls that thing over boundaries between it and whatever it is not,” Stryker said. It is a shape-shift, changing principle of movement across borders, animating addition. The word “transpire” was the focus of Stryker’s talk, and she explained it can mean “to passively happen.” But if you focus on the parts of the word, what prefix and roots are present, change can be found. “It provides a vocabulary for articulating and understanding the relationship between our sense of self, biological substance or social existence or physical environments, and our beliefs about the future,” Stryker said. She said gender is one of the most critical concepts of our time. Stryker said the current crisis around gender is being figured in the representation of transgender phenomena and transgender bias in a longer historical context. Stryker’s talk on April 6 at USU was titled, “What Transpires Now: Trans History in the Present.” The audience consisted of a variety of age ranges, colleges and sexual orientation.Īs a transgender woman, Stryker found it of personal importance to educate the public on similarities that have occurred between present-day anti-trans bills to those of the past. She is also a professor of gender studies at the University of Arizona and works with other universities to educate students. Stryker is a senior research fellow who focuses on gender and human sexuality at Stanford University’s Humanities Center. As part of the LGBTQIA+ Health & History Series, Utah State University invited Susan Stryker to present her research to students and staff.

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