Understanding Trans Lives

Trans people have been thrust into the spotlight across the world as never before. In recent years, trans communities have become targets of intense online abuse and hostile political and religious campaigns. Yet while the media often focuses on a few high-profile figures or on anti-trans attacks, far less attention is paid to the everyday realities of trans lives and their global diversity.

In this event, Raewyn Connell brings together powerful evidence and insights on the lived experiences of trans women and men, hijra, travesti, and other gender-diverse groups worldwide. She explores the forces shaping trans lives today — including medicine and its limitations, precarity and poverty, unequal gender relations, the role of sex work, and encounters with the state and corporate economy.

Connell also examines what lies behind contemporary anti-trans campaigns, challenging the simplistic notion that “transphobia” alone explains these developments and pointing instead to deeper structural causes. Finally, by highlighting the creative ways trans communities have organised, she argues for the vital contributions they can — and should — make in addressing our shared contemporary crises.

✨ Join us for a timely and thought-provoking discussion.

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Host or Publisher Goldsmiths University of London and Polity Press