Getting Disciplined: What’s Trans* About Queer Studies Now by Cael M. Keegan

Cael M. Keegan writes “Getting Disciplined: What’s Trans* About Queer Studies Now?” as a follow up to “What’s Queer about Queer Studies Now?” by David Eng, Jack Halberstam, and Jose Esteban Munoz. Trans studies, as a field, becoming a recognized and legitimized in the academic world over the past 10 years. However, there are still several roadblocks and struggles it has in finding its “home” in the academic world. For example, women’s studies and queer studies are becoming more formalized due to pressure from universities, causing trans studies to face political barriers. Trans, as a concept, is still under heavy criticism and therefore the field of trans studies tends to be taken less seriously than women’s studies and queer studies. Furthermore, in queer studies it is understood that gender, sexuality, and identity as “effects of normative power,” however, trans studies students may feel that gender is an innate experience and queer studies does not entirely support that. As a cis person, I found this article quite enlightening because there were many examples in gender studies that I never truly realized were trans-exclusionary. I am interested to better understand and learn more about trans studies and its role in women’s studies and queer studies.