Transfeminism for Children

This hybrid research article/three-act play introduces what the author calls transfeminism for children-both its practices and its makers-as material for art-based research, criticism, and pedagogy in queer- and trans-affirming childhood studies. It stages three contemporary acts of transfeminism for children to consider how girl friendships refuse cis-normative knowing in favour of making girlhood possible for feminine boys and trans girls: Act 1, a 2018 painting by punk artist and writer Sybil Lamb; Act 2, a 2015 children's novel by writer Alex Gino; and Act 3, a poem by junior high school student Averi Laskey featured in the 2013 documentary Valentine Road. In these performances, cis and trans women and children share the space, time, and feeling of girlhood without its inhospitable racism, biological essentialism, and bourgeois politics of respectability and with the promise of its re-enchantment in transfeminist sorority. It is the work of the following three acts of transfeminism for children to further evidence this claim.

Automated summary

This hybrid research article/three-act play explores the practices and creators of transfeminism for children, and their role in art-based research, criticism, and pedagogy in the field of queer- and trans-affirming childhood studies. It presents three acts of transfeminism for children, focusing on the representation and experiences of feminine boys and trans girls, and how they challenge cis-normative norms and create a sense of girlhood.