The Center for Applied Transgender Studies is proud to host the third event in its 2022 Distinguished Lecture Series. Events in the series will feature the Center’s Fellows discussing their own original research with a broad audience of scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and interested laypersons. These events will be virtual, free to attend, and open to the public.

This lecture will be given by Senior Fellow Aniruddha Dutta, and will be entitled “Suturing and Disrupting the State: Indian Trans Activism in the Aftermath of COVID-19.”

Transgender and gender non-conforming people, particularly largely working-class and Dalit (oppressed-caste) communities such as kothis and hijras, are among those hit hardest during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The pandemic has been exacerbated by the policies of the Indian state, which demonstrate an unstable assemblage or conjuncture of neoliberal and developmentalist tendencies, in keeping with long-term systemic patterns in the region. The talk situates contemporary Indian trans activism within the context of the neoliberal-developmentalist assemblage that characterizes governance in contemporary India, and examines the variable ways in which such activism negotiates fractures and contradictions within state apparatuses and modes of governance. Trans communities and activists from varied and unequal class/caste backgrounds engage the state in multiple ways, sometimes bolstering and suturing neoliberal and developmentalist modes of governance and sometimes challenging or undermining them and even playing them against each other. The talk will trace these varied negotiations and analyze how they not only enable the survival of trans-kothi-hijra people through the pandemic but also demonstrate ways in which activists may push back against the state’s simultaneous regulation and neglect of their communities.

The talk will take place from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM Central Daylight Time.

To register for the lecture, visit: https://bit.ly/CATSDL3