Transsexual as Posthuman: Approaching Trans Studies’ “Narrative Problem” through Trans and Posthumanist Genres

Abstract

“Transsexual as Posthuman” uses critical and narrative frameworks for trans studies and trans narratives as critiqued in Andrea Long Chu and Emmett Harsin Drager’s 2019 article “After Trans Studies.” With a focus on the role of the transsexual figure in postmodernity—and the haunting of Sandy Stone’s neologism “posttranssexual” therein—I analyze how satire, genre blending, dystopia, and the tagline “writing optimism without hope” may drive trans narratives present and future. I also argue that these tactics intertwine not only with trans, but with decolonial and extinction narratives as well. With persistent reference back to my own MFA creative thesis project, Inside Waters: Killer Whale Stories, I also analyze these tactics in Emily Zhou’s “Gen Z trans” realistic fiction short story collection Girlfriends (2023) and Lousie Erdrich’s Indigenous feminist dystopia Future Home of the Living God (2017).