SQS – Suomen Queer-tutkimuksen Seuran lehti

Katujen yössä

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Sisällys / Contents

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Introduction: Affective Histories of Queer and Trans Activism

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Kirjoittajat / Contributors

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Erikoissuomalaiset

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Tunteiden kuvaus vaikuttamisen keinona transmaskuliinisuutta käsittelevässä nuortenkirjallisuudessa

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The Affective Life of Trans Studies as a Political Field in Academia and Activism

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Queer Interviews

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You Have Never Seen a Dancer Like VooDoo

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Kaikki mitä miehet ovat halunneet tietää seksistä

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How Many Times the Same Story?

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Transgender Affect

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Missä mennään, transtutkimus, vuonna 2023?

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The Fears of Gay Teachers and the Collectivizing Effects of Emotion Work

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This article examines how the formation of the Working Group of Homosexual Teachers and Educators in the Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft (German Education Union, GEW) in 1978 was influenced by the affect of fear, and how emotion work emerged as a key aspect of the formation and collectivisation of the group in its first decade until 1991. To this end, we review the state of affect and emotion research in German queer history, analyse the role of fear in the formation of the group in the late 1970s, and explore the group's continued emotion work in the 1980s. We deliberately highlight the aspects of fear and emotion work: while queer and trans studies have paid much attention to anger (Stryker 1994; Landridge 2008; Milani 2021; Malatino 2022), the same cannot be said for fearful emotional states. Although there is a growing body of work on affect and emotion in German queer history, emotion work has only been implicitly addressed. We therefore highlight the role of both fear and emotion work in the history of the GEW's Working Group of Homosexual Teachers and Educators between 1978 and 1991. In discussing the history of the group, we show how not only affect and emotion but also emotion work can be key to historical change, and we touch on the question of how productive the historiographical distinction between affect and emotion is.

“Acting out of Fear”

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Amid the Brazilian military dictatorship, at a time when moral repression authorized police persecution, the queer community marched the streets demanding an end to such violence. On June 13th, 1980, one thousand people came out in downtown São Paulo for the first organized queer demonstration in Brazilian history. This demonstration intended to denounce the police violence perpetuated in the center of São Paulo by the so-called Operation Cleansing, which had as its main promoter the police’s precinct chief Richetti and queer bodies as one of its main targets. The event is analyzed with a focus on the study of emotions, mainly the concept of fear. Fear is conceptualized both as a tool of institutional control by the military regime and as a propeller of collective queer resistance against violence perpetuated by the State.

Keywords: queer history, Brazilian history, emotion

Reading Transition with Suspicion

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This article analyses Umwandlung (gendersex transition) as a sexological and autobiographic narrative in “N. O. Body’s” (Karl M. Baer’s) memoir Aus eines Mannes Mädchenjahren (1907), one of the first self-authored accounts of an intersex person in modern times. Scholars as well as authors of popular queer and trans genealogies frame Baer’s transition through medical intervention, although the historical evidence suggests otherwise. This discrepancy generates the author’s suspicion, which functions as a reading strategy and an affective methodology. The article pursues two central arguments: Empirically, it argues to de-medicalize Umwandlung as an early 20^th century concept of transition via the example of Karl M. Baer’s memoir. Methodologically, it reintroduces suspicion to affect theory and proposes “reading with suspicion” as affective strategy to critically engage with trans and intersex narratives. Ultimately, the article argues that a more nuanced, complex and contradictory perspective on Umwandlung not only gives new insight into early 20^th century intersex and trans history but also offers potential alternatives to contemporary medicalizing concepts of transition. In order to do so, the article proposes an interdisciplinary framework comprised of literary analysis as well as historiographic source study and conceptual history within the fields of trans studies and intersex studies.

Keywords: Intersex history, autobiography, early 20th century sexology, German, transition narratives, Karl M. Baer, Magnus Hirschfeld, critique, post-critique, suspicion

Desire for Trans Ancestors

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In this article, the relationship between the affective histories of queer and trans activism and the reading and writing of contemporary fictional trans literature is explored. The focus lies on the analysis of Jordy Rosenberg’s (2018) Confessions of the Fox, which allows for an investigation into how trans histories can be written and read. The article emphasizes the intricate interplay between literature and history, specifically examining the tensions and pleasures that arise from balancing authenticity and fictionality. Additionally, the role of literature as a medium for expressing emotions and inspiring activism is considered. Confessions of the Fox tells the story of a fictional transmasculine literary scholar who discovers a mysterious manuscript that reveals the trans identity of 18^th century London’s infamous thief and jailbreaker Jack Sheppard. The narrative of Confessions of the Fox establishes an analogy between human bodies and written texts, specifically referring to the trans body. In this article, I argue that the narrative itself approaches the body and the manuscript through the affect of desire. Drawing on the concept of textual desire, as found in Roland Barthes' (1975) The Pleasure of the Text and in the work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1985), the article analyzes the relationship between text and readership to trace pleasurable and ethical encounters with otherness. Overall, the article puts forward the idea to consider reading practices as a tool through which we can investigate the significance and ramifications of queer and trans histories and activism.

Keywords: trans literature, historiographic metafiction, Confessions of the
Fox, textual desire, queer reading, trans reading, authenticity, trans literacy