Historical geographies of trans care practices in the United States

Abstract

For decades, feminist geographers have emphasized care’s role as a basic necessity for the continuation of humankind. This work has largely been shouldered by those who are most marginalized, especially women, people of color, and immigrants, and has, as such, been devalued as a result (Lawson 2007). Within this literature, however, little attention has yet been granted to transgender subjectivities or the gendering of care beyond a feminine/masculine binary. This Master’s thesis bridges these gaps by exploring how trans people have engaged with care as intra-community practices during the last half-century in the United States. I explore the following questions: 1) How have US-based trans and gender nonconforming people engaged with care practices from the mid-twentieth century to 2019? How are these practices spatialized? 2) How do trans subjectivities transform theorizations of care? Using a grounded theory method, I draw from 25 oral history interviews from the New York City Trans Oral History Project to build theory about the relationship between trans subjectivities and spaces of care. Findings from this project demonstrate how the gendering of care goes beyond a male/female binary or even a (cis) male / (cis) female / trans divide. I consider the ontological implications of Joan Tronto's care framework, the theoretical backbone of much scholarship within care geographies, and ask how trans subjectivities might complicate current academic understandings of caring worlds.