Binding

What if all gender is built of trauma, at least partially? What if negativity is a critical resource for trans flourishing? What if autonomy – in the context of gender transition, but also more broadly – is less about freedom and more about negotiating the ways in which we are bound to what harms us? Building on their work Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad, in this talk, Hil Malatino explores these questions in an effort to parse out what gender ‘affirmation’ can and might mean, especially in transantagonistic social and political worlds.