Abstract & Overview
This dissertation articulates the concept of trans utopianism, drawing on both utopian theory and literature and trans theory and literature. Trans utopianism is a utopian orientation to trans identity and experience, a trans-centered orientation of hope and desire toward trans individual and communities’ futures. I characterize it by five core dimensions: temporality, spatiality, inherent incompletion, sociality, and alternativity, with each of these highlighting intersections between trans theory and experience and utopianism/utopian theory. I then argue that trans utopianism makes important interventions in debates concerning assimilative as well as separatist approaches to trans liberation and resistance, and offers new, better ways of resisting past and present oppression and injustice. In this dissertation, I argue in favor of trans utopianism by differentiating it from other, related concepts (such as queer utopianism and the t4t ethos), and demonstrating how it leads to different, better political projects and relations to self and community than those related concepts as well as concepts of projects of assimilation politics and prescriptive models of trans identity. I further argue that literature and media are important means by which trans utopianism can be fostered, and use an example of a novel which exemplifies the core features of trans utopianism to demonstrate how a literary text can foster a trans utopian orientation in its readers.