Being Trans in Philosophy
Press Release
Embargoed until Tuesday, June 17, 2025, 9 a.m. ET
'We Are Not Trans in a Theoretical Way': 22 Trans Philosophers and Philosopher-Parents of Trans Kids Speak Out on Academic Philosophy's Impact on Trans Lives in the Discipline and Beyond
Being trans is not a controversial idea but a lived reality. A new zine released today collects 22 first-personal accounts of what it is actually like to be trans or have trans kids as a philosopher. Being Trans in Philosophy details the material and on-the-ground consequences of our discipline's role in providing intellectual cover for a global transmisogynistic and transphobic moral panic -- one that has been increasingly institutionalized into laws and policies.
"I work in the USA on a visa and live in constant dread that ICE is going to show up on my doorstep, tell me the gender marker on my passport is false, and cite that as grounds for my detention or deportation," a trans woman philosopher wrote in the zine. "I can't imagine how much more fear I'd be living in if I were out about being trans, like many of my friends are. It is such a betrayal that some of my philosopher colleagues have played such an outsized role in making this oppression of trans people possible."
Philosophical conversations about trans people do not happen in a vacuum. They happen in a political context where trans people are relentlessly attacked and a material context where trans lives are particularly vulnerable. These contexts make it impossible to "just ask questions" about trans people. And trans people and our loved ones are not okay -- in, with, and because of our discipline.
"Talia Mae Bettcher talks about the WTF of existence -- where up becomes down and down becomes up. I can't begin to say how much this captures my experience as a parent of a trans kid right now," said Erin Beeghly, another contributor to the zine. "Now bullies run the show -- in dominant online spaces in our discipline, in our state legislature, in the U.S. government. State law bars kids like him from playing sports. It is illegal for him to use the bathroom associated with his gender identity at school. Just last month, my kid lost access to gender-affirming healthcare at our local hospital."
"I had days where I was spat at in the streets, then had to go to class and listen to discussions about whether or not trans people should be considered part of the gender they identify with," recalled an early-career trans philosopher. "I developed a habit of arriving late so I could use the restroom while everyone else was already in class -- only to be scolded for being late. My body internalized the hatred and developed chronic bladder infections, which eventually made it impossible for me to work."
Trans philosophers have been seen by our discipline but not heard in our own words. The stories told by Being Trans in Philosophy address a broad range of experiences from harassment, discrimination, and marginalization to solidarity, freedom, hope, moral progress, and our shared love for philosophy. "Philosophy will only be truly accessible when junior trans people are able to build careers free of harassment and discrimination, and when out trans academics stop being held to higher standards than their cis peers," Ray Briggs noted in their contribution.
"Trans people have always been and will always be in philosophy. But too few of us get to make it long enough, which too many from our discipline have now made all the more difficult," said co-editor Ding. "There is a reason that trans people are drawn to and then driven out of philosophy. There is a reason that trans-antagonism self-identifies as 'gender critical' and is most readily accepted as such in philosophy."
"I have seen a lot of our discipline over my 15+ year career. I want all my cis colleagues to hear me, not as a trans advocate but as a source of evidence, when I say I have seen and heard direct testimony of trans philosophers being discriminated against, and mistreated, at every gateway to the discipline," said co-editor Willow Starr. "Meanwhile, trans philosophers are forced to debate our right to exist, if we're even invited to conversations about us at all."
"The narratives in this zine are another reminder that trans people and their families are human beings. And trans philosophers are people who have worked at least as hard as anyone to be here, who love and value philosophy enough to stay in a discipline that remains ambivalent on the reality of trans humanity," said Dee Payton, Chair of the American Philosophical Association's Committee on LGBTQ People in the Profession. "And this zine also makes a contribution to that project, in presenting an alternative model for philosophical questions about gender and trans experience -- one which takes seriously what it's like to be the person on the other end of that question, 'what is it to be trans?'"
Being Trans in Philosophy is freely available to read, print, and distribute from its website, Bluesky, and Instagram. We encourage allies to make copies for their departments, conferences, etc.
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Photos for press use: https://drive.proton.me/urls/74Q63Z8010#ipknZxwdGDDC
Read the zine: https://being.transinphilosophy.org