About Us

Working together since 2016, we organize conferences and symposia, produce original research, and support trans philosophical community.

Our Story

Over the past two decades, with the publication of ​The Transgender Studies Reader ​1 and 2 (2006; 2013) and ​TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly​, transgender studies has quickly become a prominent interdisciplinary field. While disciplines such as history, literature, and visual arts have made significant contributions to this emerging field, philosophy has yet to clarify its role within transgender studies. The aim of this project is to support the subfield of “trans philosophy” – that is, philosophical work that is accountable to and illuminative of transgender experiences,​ ​histories,​ ​cultural​ ​production,​ ​and​ ​politics.

The Trans Philosophy Project supports events (e.g., conference, symposia, and lecture series) and resource initiatives. Events aim to facilitate the development of work in trans philosophy across a broad range of research areas, including metaphysics, epistemology, phenomenology, social/political philosophy, feminist theory, critical philosophy of race, and ethics. In doing so, these events seek to help define the rich philosophical stakes within transgender studies. The project’s resource initiatives focus on curating a bibliography of trans philosophy, a collection of pedagogical materials for teaching trans philosophy, and a set of “Best Practices” that may be used by professional philosophy organizations to support trans philosophers.

our goals

  1. building the field of trans philosophy
  2. building the trans and gender non-conforming philosophical community
  3. increasing the efficacy of public philosophy
  4. highlighting the scholarly contributions of trans, gender non-conforming, and non-binary scholars who are intersectionally impacted by poverty, ableism, queerphobia, xenophobia, structural racism, and cultural imperialism, including Black, Latinx, Arab, Muslim, Two-Spirit, Asian, Indigenous, queer, disabled, and poor trans scholars

TPP Steering Committee

Talia Mae Bettcher (California State University, Los Angeles)
Loren Cannon (Humboldt State University)
Tamsin Kimoto (Goucher College)
Amy Marvin (Gettysburg College)
Andrea Pitts (University of North Carolina, Charlotte), co-founder
Perry Zurn (American University), co-founder