Thinking Cis: Cishet Men, and Queer Women’s Roles in Anti-Trans Violence | alithia zamantakis, PhD
Channel: Center for Applied Transgender Studies
Date: 11/12/2023

(in conversation with Alex Hanna, PhD)

The fear many women have for their safety when out in public is heightened for trans women of color. Scholars have long examined what it means to be trans in a cisgender society, how trans people experience everyday life and violence, and how trans people make sense of and cope with that violence. However, it is necessary to turn to those most likely to perpetrate it: cisgender people. Through extensive interviews and focus groups with cis-heterosexual men and cis-lesbian, bisexual, and queer women, Thinking Cis examines how cis people make sense of gender, attractions to transgender women, and the murders of Black trans women. Thinking Cis analyzes how the social construction of cisness shapes how we think about race, gender, sexuality, and who we consider worthy of living. In doing so, it argues that it is not simply transphobia that gives rise to murders of trans women but fear and hatred for what it means to love and desire trans women.

alithia zamantakis, PhD is a Research Assistant Professor in the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing at Northwestern University.
Alex Hanna, PhD is Director of Research at the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute.