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Queer Social Reproduction as Radical Transfeminism

14. July 2016 19:00

Series of lectures: Radical Transfeminism in connection with the exhibition MILLIONAIRES CAN BE TRANS*

With Nat Raha & Mijke van der Drift

Social reproduction is a concept that looks at how the continuation of life (under capitalism) is possible. Social reproduction are the material processes of continuing existence. This talk will consider how social reproduction becomes a site of revolutionary transformation when the forms of life to be reproduced are threatened with social death or ‘slow death’.

This will in particular consider the lives and radical activism of trans people of colour, focusing on the work of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) – a Gay Liberation group founded in New York, 1970 by Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, two key figures in the history of trans activism. Such activism and work maybe understood as exemplary of Black Materialist Feminism (A. Davis 1985, Hill Collins 1990) and the struggles of revolutionary groups at the time (such as the Black Panthers and the Young Lords). This talk will make the case that the nonnormative ethics of STAR serves as focal point for a further articulation of Radical Transfeminism.