Freedom affects in Trans Erotica

Abstract

This chapter begins to chart some reconfigurations of trans sexualities in trans erotica productions. Trans erotica expands on and reconfigures trans sexualities beyond psychosexological and mainstream trans (auto)biographical accounts. Considering a time in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, this chapter will explore when it was becoming evident in trans scholarship and community productions that there were as many different ‘transgenderisms’ as there were combinations of sex, gender and sexual identities, and sexual situations (Devor, 1994; Queen and Schimel, 1997). Drawing on the work of Shively, Jones and De Cecco from the 1980s, Holly Devor (1994), for example, argued that sexuality may be felt and expressed in such a variety of ways that heuristic models of human sexuality must not remain narrowly focused on questions of genital contact. From this position, a shift to more broadly defined questions about the social meanings and contexts within which trans sexual-relationships take place was required (Bowen, 1998; Feinberg, 1998, 2006 [1992]; Queen and Schimel, 1997). The legacy of these developments are still reverberating in trans communities.