A Tranifesto for the Dolls: Toward a Trans Femme of Color Theory

Erique Zhang (they/she) is a PhD candidate in media, technology, and society in the School of Communication at Northwestern University. Their research draws on feminist media studies, Asian American feminism, queer and trans of color critique, and fashion studies to interrogate how media representations of transgender women reproduce normative beauty ideals and how trans women and femmes of color navigate these norms in their everyday lives. They are a cofounder of the Center for Applied Transgender Studies, an editorial assistant of the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, and an affiliate of the Center for Critical Race + Digital Studies. They hold a master of arts in visual culture: costume studies from New York University.

Julian Kevon Glover (she/they) is a scholar and artist who graduated with honors from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, holds a master's in public administration from Indiana University, and earned a PhD in Black studies from Northwestern University. She is currently assistant professor in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies and the Department of Dance and Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University. Their research focuses on Black/Brown queer cultural formations, performance, ethnography, embodied knowledge, performance theory and Black futurity. She was awarded a Franke Fellowship at Northwestern's Kaplan Institute for the Humanities, and their work appears in journals including American Quarterly, Feminist Formations, South Atlantic Quarterly, Souls, GLQ, and Text and Performance Quarterly. In 2019 they were inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society at Yale University and are longtime member of the ballroom scene.

Ava L. J. Kim is assistant professor of gender, sexuality, and women's studies at the University of California, Davis. She was previously the 2022–23 Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Associate in Trans Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She completed her PhD in English at the University of Pennsylvania and her BA in creative writing at Macalester College. Her work can be found in the journal American Studies and exhibition catalog About Face: Stonewall, Revolt, and New Queer Art.

Tamsin Kimoto (they/she) is assistant professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Washington University in St. Louis. They previously taught at Goucher College. They completed their PhD in philosophy at Emory University in 2020. Their research covers topics at the intersections of trans studies, Asian American feminisms, racial science, and prison abolition.

Nathan Alexander Moore (she/they) is a Black transfemme writer, scholar, and educator. She is assistant professor of Black trans and queer studies in the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. They are an interdisciplinary scholar who is interested in critical and creative methods to explore the nuances of Blackness, queerness, and temporality. Her research and writing interests include Black transfemininity, Black speculative arts practices, Black temporalities, and Black visual art and literature. Their work has been published in Pulse/Pulso: In Remembrance of Orlando (2018), P-QUEUE, ode to Queer, Peauxdunque Review, and TransNarratives: Scholarly and Creative Works on Transgender Experience. Their poetry chapbook, small colossus, was published in 2021. Her collection of speculative short fiction, The Rupture Files, is forthcoming.

æryka jourdaine hollis o'neil (she/they) is an interdisciplinary scholar, writer, and artist. She is a concurrent PhD candidate in the Department of Black Studies and MFA student in documentary media, with graduate certificates from the critical theory and gender and sexuality studies programs at Northwestern University. Additionally, hollis o'neil holds a master of arts in American studies and a graduate certificate in documentary filmmaking from George Washington University in Washington, DC. Their research spans the fields of Black queer and trans studies, Black feminist theory, political ontology, visual culture, performance studies, and film theory and practice.

LaVelle Ridley (she/her) is currently a President's Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. She will begin an appointment as assistant professor of queer/trans* studies at the Ohio State University in 2024. She completed her PhD in English and women's and gender studies at the University of Michigan. Her research and teaching include transgender studies, Black feminist theory, life writing studies, and studies of prison abolition. She has published in Feminist Studies, GLQ, and TSQ.