Changing Gender: The History and Future of a Concept

The Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies department is a part of SFU: The Canadian university that is Engaging the World

SFU Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies

Book Launch: Susan Stryker in Conversation with Helen Leung

SFU Harbour Centre 1700

Join SFU Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies for a conversation with groundbreaking trans scholar Susan Stryker about her new book, Changing Gender, a provocative, genre-bending call to reconsider the story we tell about gender itself.What are we talking about when we talk about gender? Where did the concept itself come from, and where might it go?In Changing Gender, the leading trans scholar Susan Stryker invites readers to ride along on her lifelong quest to uncover what gender means and does. She traces the gender concept's roots in grammar and tells the story of how it transformed into a battleground of the culture wars.From the origins of “Yankee Doodle” to acid trips in Joshua Tree National Park, from nineteenth-century phrenology to present-day anti-trans conspiracy theorists, Stryker finds surprising places to tune in to the origins, idiosyncrasies, and generative possibilities of the gender concept. Along the way, she weaves stories drawn from her lifetime as a pathbreaking historian, filmmaker, activist, and founding figure of transgender studies.Poignant and deeply researched, lyrical and authoritative, Changing Gender is a book for our fraught time, exposing limiting assumptions about gender across the political spectrum and imagining what life might look like if some of those limitations were lifted. Ultimately, Stryker argues, to change gender is to change what it means to be human—and to change reality itself.About the author:Susan Stryker’s historical research, theoretical writings, media-making, activism, and academic field-building activities have helped shape the conversation on trans issues since the early 1990s. Stryker retired from the University of Arizona in 2020 and currently holds a distinguished visiting appointment at Stanford University's Michelle Clayman Institute for Gender Research. She is the author of many academic and general audience works, including Transgender History. She lives in San Francisco.Susan Stryker was Ruth Wynn Woodward Endowed Chair in SFU Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies during 2007-2008. <a href="https://www.sfu.ca/gsws/research/ruth-wynn-woodward-chair.html" title="https://www.sfu.ca/gsws/research/ruth-wynn-woodward-chair.html" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Find out more about the Ruth Wynn Woodward Endowed Chair.</a>About the moderator:Helen Leung is a Professor in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at SFU. She co-directs the Institute for Transpacific Cultural Research and has published widely on queer media and queer cultural politics.Book sale and signing:Copies of the book will be available to purchase at the event from Upstart &amp; Crow. After the talk, there will be a book signing with Susan Stryker.Registration is required for this event.Doors open at 5:30pm; event starts at 6pm.

Changing Gender: The History and Future of a Concept

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Changing Gender: The History and Future of a Concept

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