Messianic language in trans public speech
This essay examines how two trans public figures, Lou Sullivan and Jennifer Finney Boylan, try to realize the need for transgender legibility through messianic rhetoric. Messianism is a site of contention in queer theory, between advocates for either antirelational queer theory or queer utopianism....
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group
[2018]
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| In: |
Theology & sexuality
Year: 2018, Volume: 24, Issue: 2, Pages: 110-127 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Sullivan, Louis Graydon 1951-1991
/ Boylan, Jennifer Finney 1958-
/ Transsexualism
/ Messianism
/ Rhetoric
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| IxTheo Classification: | NBE Anthropology NCF Sexual ethics |
| Further subjects: | B
Lou Sullivan
B Messianism B Jennifer Finney Boylan B Queer Theory B Mira Bellwether B Trans studies B Futurity |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | This essay examines how two trans public figures, Lou Sullivan and Jennifer Finney Boylan, try to realize the need for transgender legibility through messianic rhetoric. Messianism is a site of contention in queer theory, between advocates for either antirelational queer theory or queer utopianism. This essay sees messianic rhetoric as a strategy found in the public speech and writing of Sullivan and Boylan, each of whom instrumentalize it to achieve legibility. Such rhetoric works to the political end of broader transgender acceptance. However, it also relies upon a flattening of trans life into a monolith. Messianic rhetoric legitimates a singular narrative of how to be trans through excluding other possibilities. Public speech that rejects this universalizing messianic impulse is possible. The zine Fucking Trans Women represents such a possibility, focusing attention on experience and pleasure over narrative linearity, thus providing one path forward for trans public speech. |
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| ISSN: | 1745-5170 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Theology & sexuality
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/13558358.2018.1463639 |