"The Future is Child’s Play: A Trans, Intersex Theory of Anti-Development” with Ava L.J. Kim

"The Future is Child’s Play: A Trans, Intersex Theory of Anti-Development” with Ava L.J. Kim
November 3, 2022 at 10:30am
Zoom (registration required)
This event is open to Harvard affiliates.

Abstract: This article argues that the recent, public focus on trans children in Argentina aims to integrate gender nonconformity into an ideology of national development. By tying trans children to familiar forms of national kinship like the Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo), the ruling class in Argentina frames a normative vision of trans life as the logical extension of neoliberal governmentality, a new “generation” of human rights recognition that erases state violence and promotes austerity under the guise of a “right to gender identity.” Expanding on recent critiques of trans visibility, this essay proposes an extended model of “child’s play” through close readings of Lucía Puenzo’s XXY (2007), a film about a young intersex teenager rejecting impositions of genital surgery and hormones. Taking inspiration from Donald Winnicott’s theorizations of childhood development, “The Future is Child’s Play” advocates for an alternative understanding of queer domesticity and gender ambiguous becoming, one that actively combats the alignment of national transition with gender transition

Ava L.J. Kim is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. In July of 2023, she will begin an appointment as Assistant Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at the University of California, Davis. She completed her PhD in English at the University of Pennsylvania. Her book project, titled "Trans / Nation: Gender and Democracy in an Age of Transition," analyzes two seemingly disparate uses of “transition”: first, to describe a person’s shift from one gender to another, and second, to narrate a nation’s political change through key terms like “democratization” and “development.” Taking case studies from Argentina, Chile, the Philippines, and Vietnam, "Trans / Nation" argues that these invocations of transition form a unified history of state management from the 1970s to the present, masking neoliberal violence and promoting one “proper” path to prosperity for both individuals and nations. Her work can be found in the journal, American Studies, and exhibition catalogue, About Face: Stonewall, Revolt, and New Queer Art. She is a co-founder and co-coordinator of the Trans Literacy Project.