Women Studies Quarterly (WSQ), Editors: JV Fuqua, Red Washburn, and Brianne Waychoff (City Univ. New York), and Marquis Bey (Northwestern Univ.) (Web)

Proposals by: 15.09.2022

This special issue reflects upon the work that the word „nonbinary“ does in terms of unsettling the codes of gender, sexuality, race, and other categories of being and knowing. For this issue, the editors understand „nonbinary“ to serve as a direct challenge to the tenacity of binary logics, ethics, and orientations. Not only located in, but perhaps most recognizably found in discussions of gender and sexuality, nonbinary must be thought in relation to deep conceptions of identity and belonging across the spectrum of power and difference. Feminist theory has long focused upon the problematic aspects of binary thinking whether in relation to the dyads of nature/culture, sex/gender, biology/culture, human/nonhuman, or the individual/collective. Currently, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the editors see the consequences of nonbinary thinking as it relates to fact/fiction and the schisms in public discourse and everyday life. Nonbinary directs attention to the power and the sometimes precarious status of ways of being, knowing, and doing that fall outside such normatively derived epistemological, structuring pairs.

In 2008, WSQ published „Trans-“ – its first issue devoted to the subject of „transing“ (Styker, Currah, Jones) gender, the human/nonhuman divide, region, power, and racialized identities. During the following twelve years, the popular media landscape has had a veritable explosion of images and narratives of nonbinary ways of being. From performer Billy Porter, to writer, artist, and activist Alok Vaid-Menon, to Billions actor Asia Kate Dillon, nonbinariness now circulates through popular culture and podcasts with a speed that can be surprising. However, in feminist, critical race, postcolonial, and queer theory, the nonbinary continues to receive, in the best cases, an inclusive nod in discussions of trans- or, in the worst cases, disregard. This is not to say that in all trans- work, nonbinary must be parsed. It is, rather, to acknowledge that nonbinary needs to be considered for its relationality to trans- as well as for its differences from, and challenges to, that concept, along with intersecting identities of race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, age, and religion, etc. Read more … (Web)