An interdisciplinary study of the historical and social contexts of queer and trans life. Explores the social meanings of sex and gender in our current moment; traces the formation of LGBTQ+ social and cultural movements; unpacks the categorization of genders and sexualities.

A study of literary and cultural expressions of queer and trans identities, positionalities, and analytics through an exploration of literature, art, and media. We will examine historical and political power relations by considering the intersections of sexuality and gender with race, class, nation, and disability. Topics include the social construction and regulation of sexuality and gender, performance and performativity, intersectionality, and the relationship between aesthetic forms and queer/ trans subjectivity. Our interpretations will be informed by queer and trans theories.

Introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of transgender studies, providing a history of the field and engaging current debates within it. Students will explore the emergence and consolidation of trans identities, practices, cultures, and knowledges across medical, historical, sociological, cultural, and artistic contexts, paying particular attention to dynamics of race, class, and ability, to global and transnational difference, and to the implications of transgender studies for understanding gender and sexuality overall.

Queer femme identity, rooted in 1940s and 1950s bar culture, continues to resonate. Often linked with butch, femme is a queer, feminine expression that challenges the binary tying femininity to cisgender, heterosexual women. Femme exists outside that frame. Black women have long moved beyond white heteropatriarchal norms, and Black femmes of all genders have turned that resistance into power. This course explores Black femme identity as a radical critique of gender, sexuality, and whiteness. Through cultural studies and humanities methods, we will examine femme's complexity and how it unsettles what we assume about queerness, femininity, and identity.