Journal of Feminist Scholarship Journal of Feminist Scholarshi

Journal of Feminist Scholarship Journal of Feminist Scholarship
Volume 17
Issue 17 Fall 2020 Article 4
Fall 2020
Towards a Trans Feminist Disability Studies Towards a Trans
Feminist Disability Studies
Niamh Timmons
Oregon State University, [email protected]
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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation
Timmons, Niamh. 2020. "Towards a Trans Feminist Disability
Studies." Journal of Feminist Scholarship 17
(Fall): 46-63. 10.23860/jfs.2020.17.04.
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Towards a Trans Feminist Disability Studies Towards a Trans
Feminist Disability Studies
Cover Page Footnote Cover Page Footnote
I would like to thank the editors for their help, Orion Benedict
for their support, and Qwo-Li Driskill whose
guidance has greatly shaped this project. I'm also indebted to
the activism of Black Trans Women, such
as Tourmaline, who've been doing amazing work revitalizing

these histories.
This special issue is available in Journal of Feminist
Scholarship: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/jfs/vol17/iss17/4
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/jfs/vol17/iss17/4
46
Towards a Trans Feminist Disability Studies
Niamh Timmons
Abstract: In this article, I investigate the ways in which
Transfeminism and Trans Women can be more
integrated and entangled within feminist disability studies and
Disability Justice, and vice versa. This
would make the field a seemingly rich arena for considering the
linkages between Trans Women,
Transfeminism, dis/ability, and feminism. Yet, the primary texts
of the feminist disability studies
consistently leave out Trans Women in their analyses. Specific
inclusion and highlighting the experiences
of Trans Women, especially Trans Women who are disabled, is
often missing from disability rights and
disability justice projects. This is especially alarming given the
way Trans folks, particularly Trans
Women, have been medically and socially constructed as

“disabled” or existing in proximity to disability.
Instead of nitpicking the gaps in which Trans Women and
Transfeminism have been excluded from
conversations about disability, I want to turn towards how
Transfeminism and the histories of ableism
towards disabled peoples and Trans Women can be entangled
with one another. I divide the article into
three main sections: Disability Studies and Activism and Trans
Women, the Monster and the Freak, and
Potential Entanglements. The first section addresses what
engagements Trans Studies and Disability
Studies have had with one another, as well as how that has
played out in terms of Trans Activism and
Disability Rights and Disability Justice. The second section
looks at the histories and discourses in the
ways in which Trans and disabled peoples have been
constructed as the “monster” and the “freak” via
freak shows of the nineteenth century, media reporting, and
TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist)
rhetoric. The third section builds on the entanglements
suggested previously and reads the activisms of
STAR, Marsha P Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera in a genealogy of
Disability Justice principles, via the work of
Sin’s Invalid.

Keywords: Trans Feminism, Monstrous, Feminist Disability
Studies
Copyright by Niamh Timmons
Content Notification: mentions of transmisogyny, anti-
blackness, and ableism
In 2019, Black trans activist and filmmaker, Tourmaline,
released her film Salacia which depicts the
vibrant culture of the now lost Seneca Village, a thriving Black
community in early nineteenth century
New York City. An actor playing Mary Jones, a Black trans sex
worker, appears prominently throughout
the film.1 Her work, on Seneca Village and Mary Jones,
breathes life into historical Black Trans Women’s2
lives; it weaves across historical time to showcase the historical
persecution and also the joy in Black frans
life (Wally 2020). Tourmaline’s projects are heavily influential
to this article and how I think of the
importance and tensions of Black trans life. I am also interested
in how these figures, who are cast as

deviant by those outside their communities, are linked to
disability studies. Yet, when I turn to disability
studies, particularly feminist disability studies, I see a
disinterest or avoidance in thinking about the
issues of Trans Women. This article is an intervention that calls
feminist disability studies to not only pay
attention to Trans Women but also highlight how the kinds of
historical figures that Tourmaline
Timmons: Towards a Trans Feminist Disability Studies
47
celebrates should be read as an important part of disability
genealogies. Figures like Mary Jones matter
not only to Black and trans communities but to disabled
communities as well.
In her thinking of a potential “critical disability studies
methodology,” Julie Avril Minich (2017)
moves toward recentering the field and practice of disability
studies to its social justice aims. Minich
argues that disability studies must move beyond merely
investigating accessibility and “normativity:”
And I must emphasize that this scrutiny of normative ideologies
should not occur for its own sake but with

the goal of producing knowledge in support of justice for people
with stigmatized bodies and minds. In other
words, I argue for naming disability studies as a methodology
rather than a subject in order to recommit the
field to its origins in social justice work. (6)
In this article, I argue for the project of a critical disability
studies methodology by looking at how the
principles of Transfeminism can be connected, or as I assert
here, already have unexamined connections,
with feminist disability studies, Disability Justice, and
disability studies at large. Emi Koyama (2003) in
her “Transfeminist Manifesto” argues that, “Transfeminism is
primarily a movement by and for trans
women who view their liberation to be intrinsically linked to
the liberation of all women and beyond”
(245).3 Here I take up Minich’s approach of disability studies
as a methodology and also the framework of
Koyama’s Transfeminism by deliberately centering Trans
Women4 in order to understand how Trans
Women, who are often left out of disability analysis, fit into the
project of disability studies and Disability
Justice. This is especially important given the project of
feminist disability studies and the dynamics of
transmisogyny. Julia Serano (2007) writes,

[b]ecause anti-trans discrimination is steeped in traditional
sexism, it is not simply enough for trans activists
to challenge binary gender norms (i.e., oppositional sexism) —
we must also challenge the idea that femininity
is inferior to masculinity and femaleness is inferior to maleness.
In other words, by necessity, trans activism
must be at its core a feminist movement. (16)
As such, my project works to trans-form feminist disability
studies and further argue that Trans Women’s
oppression and activisms are integral to feminist disability
studies. By doing so, the subfield will benefit
from engaging the intrinsic patriarchal structures, racisms, and
ableism that are all at play in
transmisogyny.5 I argue for studying the lives and the works of
Trans Women and how they connect to the
feminist disability studies project, and not duplicating their
existence in a way that is used to “gender
trouble” (Mog 2008). This is a preventive measure to address
critiques made by trans scholars regarding
the ways in which Queer Studies has largely only engaged trans
people and issues as a means of troubling
gender and sexuality rather than categories of analysis that
deserve study (Stryker 2004, 241).

Additionally, in this article I critically address how Black Trans
Women are most impacted by
transmisogyny and ableism. To do so, I not only use Minich’s
critical disability studies methodology but
also a Disability Justice framework. In the primer of the
Disability Justice and arts organization, Sins
Invalid, Disability Justice activist Stacey Milbern (2016) writes:
A Disability Justice framework understands that all bodies are
unique and essential, that all bodies have
strengths and needs that must be met. We know that we are
powerful not despite the complexities of our
bodies, but because of them. We understand that all bodies are
caught in these bindings of ability, race,
gender, sexuality, class, nation state and imperialism, and that
we cannot separate them. (14)
Journal of Feminist Scholarship, Vol. 17 [2020], Iss. 17, Art. 4
48
This is especially relevant given the emphasis on white Trans
Women’s experiences and lives by
Cishetero6 society, and also by often queer and Trans
communities, given their social affinity to dominant
structures. Emily Skidmore (2011) notes that the “good

transsexual,” as defined by figures such as
Christine Jorgensen, is “able to articulate transsexuality as an
acceptable subject position through an
embodiment of the norms of white womanhood, most notably
domesticity, respectability, and
heterosexuality” (271). This continues to this day with white
Trans Femininity, and the pursuit of bein g
akin to Cisgender Women, as the center of Cishetero narratives.
This narrative is often reproduced in
trans communities. Thinking with Skidmore, this article
highlights the disabling conditions of entwined
racism, ableism, and transphobia, and how they
disproportionately impact Trans Women of Color.
This project weaves critiques of transfeminism and trans studies
as produced by Black trans
scholars. Elías Krell (2017, 237) argues, via the work of the
activist Tourmaline, for a reframing of
transfeminism away from academic scholarship and into trans
activisms and histories. I follow the
arguments of Krell and Tourmaline and locate the genealogies
of a disability Transfeminist project in the
lives of Black Trans Women. This serves as a methodological
reminder and approach for potential future
activist and scholarship in feminist disability studies to not only

focus on activist histories but also locate
them as central in the genealogical work pursued in disability
and trans studies. Black disability studies
scholars Moya Bailey and Izetta Autumn Mobley (2019) provide
a template in which the critical work of
Black studies can be done within feminist disability studies,
describing how to engage Black disabled
histories:
This is not a project of posthumously assigning people a label
that they wouldn’t have chosen for themselves
but looking critically at the context of a life and thinking
through disability as an equally powerful force in
shaping a person. By reassessing our heroes of the past with the
lens of disability, we can provide more
texture and more humanity to our portrayal of our ancestors.
(34)
I utilize Bailey and Mobley’s suggestion for a project of
understanding historical figures in a genealogy of
disability without categorizing them as disabled. I am extending
this project to the genealogy of Black
Trans Women as a central part of both Transfeminism and
feminist disability studies.
Instead of suggesting new forms of theory or praxis to bridge
feminist disability studies, Disability

Justice, and Transfeminism with one another, I turn to the
already existent traces that point us to the
kinship and methodological usage of these practices and ways
of thinking. I do this by focusing on the
lives, experiences, and activism of Black and Trans Women of
Color, specifically Mary Jones, Frances
Thompson, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Street
Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. This
project is concerned both with how to chart the ways that
genealogies of “the monster” and “the freak”
reveal the similarities in reactions to disabled and Trans
Women, and with the activisms of Trans Women
of Color as part of a disability genealogy.
Trans Studies/Disability Studies and the Absence of Trans
Women
While this project is not about dwelling on the lack of
scholarship including Trans Women in feminist
disability studies, I think it is essential to chart the relationship
between Trans Women and trans studies
with disability studies. To do so, I look at the way “feminist
disability studies” has been framed as a

subfield and how Trans Women and trans studies could benefit
that project. I also look more broadly
about how the fields of trans studies and disability studies have
been engaging one another. I make the
49
case that disability studies scholars have refused to address
transness—trans people also have an ongoing
legacy of rejecting potential associations with disability. Chris
Bell (2006) in his critique on the whiteness
of disability studies, writes, “I want to stress that Disability
Studies is not the only field of inquiry wherein
individuals of color are treated as second-class citizens. If
anything, Disability Studies is merely aping the
ideology of the vast majority of academic disciplines and ways
of thinking that preceded it and which it
now sits alongside of” (281).7 The result of this has led to the
discomfort and inhospitality of disability
studies and movements as an intellectual and activist space for
People of Color. As such, trans and
disability scholars and activists need to similarly examine this
tension with whiteness, an issue that also

exists within trans studies. Both the trans and disabled subject
is presumed as white and this tendency
needs to be challenged and grappled with.
As it currently stands, the subfield of “feminist disability
studies” has been unable to factor in
Trans Women into their discussions.8 In the introduction to
Feminist Disability Studies, Kim Hall (2011)
writes, “Feminist Disability Studies makes the body, bodily
variety, and normalization central to analyses
of all forms of oppression” (6). Elsewhere Rosemarie Garland-
Thomson (2005) writes in her review of the
burgeoning subfield, “Feminist Disability Studies questions the
dominant premises that cast disability as
a bodily problem to be addressed by normalization procedures
rather than as a socially constructed
identity and a representational system similar to gender” (1559).
Based on these descriptions of feminist
disability studies, the subfield should be a vibrant arena in
which transness as a category would help
reveal the ways gender, race, and class are entangled in the
process of normalization. Failing to engage
Trans Women as part of this analysis is a significant gap in the
methodology that Garland-Thomson is
highlighting. Her analysis also suggests, by exclusion, the

categories of possible gender representation
systems, revealing cisnormative underpinnings. The most
visible connection between transness and
disability is the way that trans people have been deemed
disabled by medical institutions. Often, trans
people who wish to undergo some medical transition must be
diagnosed with gender dysphoria in order to
access hormones or gender-affirming surgeries. Dean Spade
(2003) makes the point about the
performance of gender that trans people must undergo to receive
trans-specific healthcare, “[t]he medical
approach to our gender identities forces us to rigidly conform
ourselves to medical providers’ opinion
about what ‘real masculinity’ and ‘real femininity’ mean, and to
produce narratives of struggle around
those identities that mirror diagnostic criteria of GID [gender
identity disorder]” (29).9 Over the last
decades, insurance companies were resistant to cover trans-
related healthcare as they deemed it merely
cosmetic (Stryker 2017, 139). In the 2010 O’Donnabhain v.
Commissioner case, which argued that GID
provides a rationale for covering sex assignment surgery and
hormone replacement therapy,
O’Donnabhin noted, “I have to accept the stigma of being

labeled as having a disorder [or] a mental
condition . . . in order to get benefits. I haven’t liked this
diagnosis from the very beginning. But I’ve got to
play the game” (quoted in Strassburger 2012, 345-46). Susan
Stryker (2017) writes on the complicated
relationship trans people have with medical institutions:
But medical science has always been a two-edged sword—its
representatives’ willingness has gone hand in
hand with their powers to define and judge. Far too often,
access to medical services for transgender people
has gone through has depended on constructing transgender
phenomena as symptoms of a medical illness or
a physical malady, partly because “sickness” is the condition
that typically legitimizes medical intervention.
(52)
All of this points to the tense relationship that trans people have
with medical institutions. This also
produces a distance in which many trans people want to divorce
themselves not only from medicalization
and pathologization but also disability broadly. Eli Clare (2013)
points this out, “I often hear trans

50
people—most frequently folks who are using, or want to use
medical technology to reshape their bodies —
name their trans-ness a disability a birth defect” (262). What is
revealed is a tension between being trans
and being labeled disabled. Disability is both potentially a
means to be cured and also something to be
avoided. As such, this notion of “defectiveness” permeates trans
discourses, often overlapping with
medical discourses about transness. As a Trans Woman who is
disabled, I have often thought about the
ways in which trans as an identity category does and does not
relate to disability. I have noticed this
ableism in trans communities firsthand and the inability of
much of trans discourse to account for this
relationship and the possibility of being trans and disabled.
To this end, Alexandre Baril and Catriona Leblanc (2015) make
a vital critique, “1) trans studies
assumes an able-bodied trans identity; and 2) disability studies
assumes cis* disabled identity (that is,
without ‘voluntary’ transition)” (31).10 This division often
makes it difficult to not only have experiences of
being a trans disabled person recognized, but also inhibits the

potential to build coalitions and alliances
between trans and disabled activisms. As Jasbir Puar (2017)
argues, “[h]istorically and
contemporaneously, the nexus of disability and trans has been
fraught, especially for trans bodies that
may resist alliances with people with disabilities in no small
part because of long struggles against
stigmatization and pathologization that may be reinvoked
through such an affiliation” (35). Thus, there is
a definite space of tension where trans people are uncomfortable
and resist associations with disability. As
Puar notes, this often comes at the expense of working in
solidarity with disabled people and their own
frustrating experiences with the medical establishment. It
should also be noted that many scholars (; and
Baril 2015; Clare 2013; Puar 2014 and 2017) understand
disability and transness as identity categories
with no overlap, and often they ignore the existence of disabled
trans people. In actuality, the two
disciplines share a lot in common as Ashley Mog and Amanda
Lock Swarr (2008) point out, “Transgender
studies, much like disability studies, works with the lived
bodily experience of people who fit outside of
hegemonic gender norms and the ways in which people

negotiate corporeal experiences that run up
against societal barriers that only privilege certain bodies.” (9)
Alison Kafer in Feminist, Queer, Crip
(2013, 157) suggests that there’s a coalitional possibility
between the struggles between disabled and trans
activism. However, I believe that it should not just be thought
of as a coalition, rather there needs to be an
examination of how disability and transness are deeply
entangled. I push for not only the examination of
the nexus that Puar describes, but also for acknowledgement of
the contemporary and historical
entanglements between disability and transness.
In this space, I have tried to chart the ways that disability and
trans studies have often failed to
understand one another and the critical relevance shared
between the two. Given these critiques, there
needs to be space where both trans and disability scholars and
activists are more accountable to one
another. Puar (2014) importantly asks us,
[w]hat kinds of political and scholarly alliances might
potentiate when each acknowledges and inhabits the
more generalized conditions of the other, creating genealogies
that read both entities as implicated within

same assemblages of power rather than as intersecting at
specific overlaps? (78)
As such, I do not want to dwell in the world of criticizing these
ideas in relation to one another. Instead, I
am interested in a project that begins a more conversational
approach to Transfeminism and Disability
Justice praxises that already exist. Through this, we can view
transness and disability as relational and
can urge the activism and scholarship of both to become
invested in one another.
51
The Monster and the Freak
One of the first steps necessary for this project is to think about
the ways in which both disabled people
and Trans Women are constructed as monstrous. Monstrosity
has its roots in discourses that construct
non-normative bodyminds, such as disabled and Trans Feminine
peoples, as monstrous. Asa Simon
Mittman (2012) argues,

[a]bove all, the monstrous is that which creates this sense of
vertigo, that which question our (their,
anyone’s) epistemological worldview, highlights its fragmentary
and inadequate nature, and thereby asks us .
. . to acknowledge the failures of our systems of categorization.
(8)
For Margrit Shildrick (2011, 20), the monstrous is what nature
can “disturbingly” make while producing
an Other to make sense of the Self, it is the construction of an
“unnatural” monstrous subject that
constitutes the construction of what and who is normal. In other
words, the monstrous is constituted in
deviance, away from perceived notions of normalcy. Moreover,
leaning into Mittman’s description of the
monstrous, the deviance of the monstrous subject then produces
confusion and tension for the self. It is
very much a self-perpetuating cycle of who gets to be counted
as “normal” and as an idealized subject.
Thus, the process of who is determined as monstrous is not a
static category and is ever-shifting.
Interestingly, Shildrick in her listing of figures casts
“encephalitic infants” and “conjoined twins” with the
replicants and man-made androids from Blade Runner in the
same category of the monstrous, which

makes the “disturbing” and “naturalness” harder to pin down
(20). However, it is useful when
understanding how Trans Women are constructed as monstrous.
Exclusion from the norm is also what motivates ideas of trans
people, specifically Trans Women,
as deviant and perverse. Trans studies scholar C. Riley Snorton
(2017, 20) addresses the ways in which
medically examined bodies of enslaved people and policing of
Blackness in the nineteenth century are
intrinsically linked. At the same time, as many disability
scholars have noted, disability cannot be
divorced from the idea of the monstrous, resonating with
medicalization of enslaved people’s bodies. In
writing about the freak shows of the nineteenth century,
Garland-Thomson (1996) notes:
Although extraordinary bodily forms have always been
acknowledged as atypical, the cultural resonances
accorded them arise from the historical and intellectual
moments in which these bodies are embedded.
Because such bodies are rare, unique, material, and confounding
of cultural categories, they function as
magnets to which culture secures its anxieties, questions, and
needs at any given moment. Like the bodies of

females and slaves, the monstrous body exists in societies to be
exploited for someone else’s purposes. Thus,
singular bodies become politicized when culture maps its
concerns upon them as meditations on individual
as well as national values, identity, and direction. (2)
In disability studies, the disabled body becomes a space, and in
the case of the freak — the public display
of disabled people for amusement — that makes able-
bodied/minded societies feel secure in themselves.
Using this foundation of the intrinsic connections with
disability and the construction of the monstrous, I
want to turn to the ways that Trans Women have been
constructed as monstrous. Anson Koch-Rein
(2014) points out that, “[t]he monster . . . is a central figure in
representations of trans*, serving widely
divergent narratives of transphobic insult and trans* resistance
alike” (135). In other words, the monster
is central to understanding transness as a group of oppressed
identities and, as I explore in this article, is
also how that moniker could be reclaimed.
52

There are two forms of the “monstrous” that I want to engage in
with regard to Trans Women.
First, the historical roots of the construction of Trans Women in
the nineteenth century as monstrous,
and second how we might read narratives of “monstrosity” in
experiences of Trans Women of Color
today.11 In 1836, Mary Jones, a Black Trans Woman sex
worker, was arrested and put on trial for stealing
money from a client. Jones was sensationalized in a lithograph
that depicted her well-dressed with the
caption “the Man-Monster.” Unlike disability that was on
display at freak shows at the time, the
monstrousness assigned to Jones was far more ambiguous. Tavia
Nyong’o (2009) argues, “Sewallly’s [sic]
monstrousness lay both in his [sic] evident race and in the
shocking conflation of the gender binary
around which the dynamics of middle-class propriety pivoted”
(98). Additionally, her monstrosity to
white middle-class society could be located in the fact that
Jones had sexual relations with white men,
thus upsetting gender, racial, and sexual norms of the time. The
category of the “monster” produces an
Other in order to make sense of the Self. There is no evidence

that Jones was considered a “monster”
within the Black community, in fact, Jones argued that she was
accepted within Black communities. On
the other hand, her story is often erased within Black historical
narratives. Nyong’o (2009) writes:
That Sewally’s [sic] story should be seen as too sensational for
black history is doubly ironic given in that the
sole record we have of his [sic] own words testifies to his [sic]
own convictions that he [sic] was accepted in
the black community of his day. Sewally [sic] told the police at
the time of his [sic] first arrest that his [sic]
cross-dressing persona had been accepted at balls thrown by
African Americans in both New York City,
where he [sic] was born and raised, and New Orleans, which he
[sic] had visited. His [sic] public claims must
be read carefully in their context of interrogation and ridicule,
in which acceptance by his [sic] own people
was perhaps the one refuge from scorn he [sic] could easily
claim without fear of contradiction. (100)
The case of Mary Jones’ life reveals the monster is a subjective
category. It also reveals the ambiguous and
multiplicities of the construction of Black Trans Women as
monstrous. Several decades later, this
ambiguity would begin to dissipate.

Almost thirty years later, Frances Thompson, a disabled Black
Trans Woman, was arrested for
cross-dressing in Memphis. Following the Memphis Riots of
1866, where Thompson was raped, she
testified before a Congressional committee about her experience
and the Riots. Her testimony, along with
four other Black women, pointed to the racialized and gendered
violence that had happened in Memphis.
Her arrest for cross-dressing in 1876 was used by white
conservatives to undermine her testimony
because of her transgender status. Hannah Rosen (1999) writes
that:
Similar to the disparagement of black women prior to the riot,
newspaper editors described Thompson as
‘lewd,’ associated her with prostitution, and portrayed her as
the epitome of ‘unvirtuous’ gender and
sexuality. They attributed to her ‘vile habits and corruptions,’
decried her ‘utter depravity,’ and accused her
of using her ‘guise’ as a woman to facilitate her supposed role
as ‘wholesale debaucher’ and ‘procuress’ of
numberless young women for prostitution. The papers then used
these charges to condemn their Republican
opponents, reminding their readers that the Republican Party—
now referred to as ‘the Frances Thompson

Radical Party’—had relied upon Thompson’s ‘perjurious
evidence’ to condemn white men in Memphis for
violence and brutality. (284)
An article that appeared in the Pulaski Citizen in 1876 (Pulaski
is a small town in south-central Tennessee
where the Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1865) serves as an
example of the vitriol directed at Thompson:
53
Thompson is well known to the people of this city as a low
minded criminal of the most revolting character . .
Not being to pay the fine a lot of male toggery was put upon the
impecunious Thompson, and he [sic] was
sent out on the chain gangs to work the streets. An immense
crowd of curious idling people about to see the
changed figure of the thick lipped, foul mouthed scamp, and
finding it impossible to drive them off,
Thompson was sent to the lock up again. (1)
For white conservatives and racists, Thompson’s monstrousness
was intrinsically tied not only to her race
and gender identity but also her testimony about the violence

she experienced. It is critical to understand
that Thompson’s gender identity, which was also deeply
connected to her as a Black woman, was used to
justify racial and gendered violence against all Black people.
Similar to Mary Jones, Thompson argued
that she was seen as a woman within the Black community,
thus, nullifying the conditions of her arrest as
cross-dressing. Rosen (2009) points out:
After her arrest, Thompson protested the findings that she was
‘a man and not a woman in any respect.’ She
turned not to her body but, rather, to social practices and
community recognition as evidence of her
legitimate gender identity. A reporter from the Memphis Daily
Times claimed that in an interview,
Thompson insisted her arrest and imprisonment were unjust
because she ‘was always regarded as a woman,’
having worn female attire since she was a small child. (238)
However, this was wholly disregarded.
Several threads emerge from the lives of Mary Jones and
Frances Thompson. First, while cross-
dressing laws were enforced against a number of gender non-
conforming groups, the spectacles of the
arrests and incarcerations of Jones and Thompson reveal that

the alignment of Trans Women with the
monster was deeply connected to anti-blackness. Second, the
arrests of Jones and Thompson were used as
a means to bolster anti-Black structures. The publicity of Jones’
arrest connected Blackness with gender,
racial, and sexual deviance, while the aftermath of Thompson’s
arrest provided the impetus to dismiss,
and thus justify, racialized gendered violence against Black
women. In other words, the arrests of Jones
and Thompson have implications that impacted Black
communities at large. At the same time, these cases
also reveal brief moments of Black trans life in the Nineteenth
Century. Based on the accounts made by
Jones and Thompson, Black Trans Women were accepted in
their Black communities. This hints towards
the possibility that there was a vibrant existence of Black Trans
Women in the nineteenth century that
only became visible through the arrests and constructions of
Jones and Thompson as monstrous. Lastly,
as Nyong’o pointed out via the omission of Jones from Black
historical narratives, we can think of Puar’s
call to reimagine our genealogies and see Jones and Thompson
as part of a disability genealogy because
Black Trans Women experienced the disabling effects of the law

(after all, if Thompson could have paid
her fine, she would not have been incarcerated). Additionally,
Thompson was recognized in her life as
disabled. The Pulaski Citizen (1876) article that spewed vitriol
towards Thompson noted, “A quartette of
medical experts who worked upon the case also discovered that
the dusky Thompson’s lower legs were as
crooked as a young dogwood tree or a ram’s horns.” (1) Such
mentions, while ableist, give us space to
imagine disabled kinship and genealogies.
The second thread of Trans Women constructed as monstrous
has stemmed from the ideologies
of Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERF), who argue
that sex and gender are indistinguishable
categories. These ideas have in turn permeated mainstream
transmisogynist rhetoric. In Gyn/Ecology,
Mary Daly (1990) explicitly connects Trans Women to
Frankenstein’s monster, “Today the Frankenstein
phenomenon is omnipresent . . . in . . . phallocratic technology .
. . Transsexualism is an example of male
surgical siring which invades the female world with substitutes”
(70-71). Daly sees vaginoplasty, the

54
surgery to create non-intersexed Trans Women vaginas, as the
means by which Trans Women become
monstrous. Specifically, Daly sees Trans Women as being
Frankenstein-esque in the ways that they
become “female substitutes.” At the core of her argument, Daly
cannot see Trans Women, regardless if
they have had a vaginoplasty or not, as women. Instead, it is
this pursuit of womanhood that makes trans
Women monstrous. Janice Raymond (1994) extends this blatant
transmisogyny by considering the very
presence of Trans Women in lesbian/women’s spaces as violent
and monstrous. She writes, “The
transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist, having castrated
himself [sic], turns his [sic] whole body and
behavior into a phallus that can rape in many ways, all the time.
In this sense, he [sic] performs total rape,
while also functioning totally against women’s will to lesbian-
feminism” (112).12 Raymond avoids using
Daly’s gothic horror image of the monster and instead
configures Trans Women’s very existence into a
monstrosity.

The legacies of Daly and Raymond’s construction of Trans
Women as monstrous have not
disappeared from the transmisogynist imagination. In the 2015
campaign against Houston’s Equal Rights
Ordinance, opponents of the ordinance reframed the measure by
stoking fear that Trans Women were
“really men” who were going to sexually assault women while
in the women’s bathroom. A New York
Times article describes the opposition to the ordinance as a
“public safety” issue rather than a civil rights
matter (Fernandez and Blinder 2015). This rhetoric was
successful in swaying voters to reject the
ordinance, even by voters in communities that the ordinance
would benefit. At the root is a deep
investment in transmisogynist rhetoric that echoes Raymond’s
belief that Trans Women are really men
whose gender presentation was used to assault “real” women
sexually.
Marquis Bey (2017) argues that Blackness and transness are
category nodes that operate in
relation with one another:
They are, rather, nodes of one another, inflections that, though
originary and names for the nothingness
upon which distinction rests, flash in different hues because of

subjects’ interpretive historical entrenchment
. . . Manifesting in the modern world differently as race and
gender fugitivity, black and trans*, though
pointed at by bodies that identify as black and/or trans*,
precede and provide the foundation condition for
those fugitive identificatory demarcations. (278)
While Bey acknowledges their separate categorizations, his
framing of Blackness and Transness requires
us to think about their relationality to one another. As such, the
work of TERF scholars and the Houston
ordinance must be read in relation to one another. After all, the
rhetoric opposing the Houston ordinance
comes from a genealogy of white racial fear of Black men
preying upon white women (Bederman 1995,
47). It is important to think, in these shifting genealogies, about
the racial absences of Blackness. For
TERF scholars and their transmisogynist rhetorics, anti -
Blackness lingers beneath an uninvoked surface.
Additionally, these structures, and the genealogies I have
employed here, push us to think about how
disability is entangled with these logics and constructions.
In these episodes of casting Trans Women as monstrous, it is
important to return to the ways that

cross-dressing laws, the arrests of Mary Jones and Frances
Thompson, and TERF rhetoric all deem Trans
Women as “unnatural,” as a force intrinsically violent to the
social order, and with the potential to
sexually violate “real women.” As such, the construction of
Trans Women as monstrous is inherently
disabling as it has literal consequences for Trans Women to
have social, political, and even physical life. It
is also important to consider that all of these constructions of
Trans Women as monstrous are deeply
racialized. While the connections are more explicitly present i n
the episodes of Jones and Thompson, it is
less so in TERF and anti-trans bathroom bill rhetoric. However,
the latter is deeply rooted in maintaining
the virtue of white women that developed in the South following
the Civil War (Bederman 1995 , 45).
55
Moreover, similar to the ways in which Thompson’s arrest was
used to justify violence against Black
women, so was the emphasis on Trans Women in bathrooms in
the Houston ordinance campaign used a

cover to justify legal discrimination against all non-white, non-
heterosexual, and non-able-bodied, and
non-gender conforming peoples. In this section, I have used the
case of the monster to think about how
the roots of oppression can potentially be mapped into a
genealogy between trans and disabled people. In
the next section, I move beyond oppression experienced to see
how potentials can be built.
Potentials of Trans-Disability Activist Genealogies
A part of the possibility of thinking about the potential overlap
between Transfeminism and feminist
disability studies is looking not just at the contemporary
ideological similarities, but the genealogies of
Trans Women of Color activism. Further, the roots of this
activism, in particular, that of Street
Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR), can be read in a
way that establishes itself in relation to the
genealogy of disability activism and scholarship. In this section,
I lean heavily on Stacey Milbern’s (Sins
Invalid 2016) approach to Disability Justice, which she
describes as:
Disability Justice holds a vision born out of collective struggle,

drawing upon the legacies of cultural and
spiritual resistance within a thousand underground paths,
igniting small persistent fires of rebellion in
everyday life. Disabled people of the global majority — black
and brown people — share common ground
confronting and subverting colonial powers in our struggle for
life and justice. There has always been
resistance to all forms of oppression, as we know through our
bones that there have simultaneously been
disabled people visioning a world where we flourish, that values
and celebrates us in all our myriad beauty.
(15)
Via this approach, I argue that we can conceptualize the
activism of STAR as an important part of a
resistance that is at its core a part of disability resilience and
resistance. By emphasizing STAR in
particular, I am suggesting that Trans Women’s activism,
especially that of Trans Women of Color, has
always been connected to disability resistance and should be
read in a genealogy as such. By making this
reading, I suggest that solidarities do not need to be reinvented,
or thought of as something new. Rather,
the tools already exist and the methodological question is more
about how we should use what has been

provided by the activists that preceded us.
A critical connection that is possible between disability and
Trans Women is to restructure our
genealogies, a project that is already beginning in disability
studies. The most notable of these recent
restructurings of disability genealogies is the positioning of
Gloria Anzaldúa and Audre Lorde as disability
ancestors. Both Kim (2017) and Alexis Pauline Gumbs (2012)
have noted that Audre Lorde and June
Jordan have had their disabilities and work engaging their
“disabilities” by the educational institutions
they were employed at, as well as their work being often
overlooked by disability scholars as relevant to
the field of disability studies. Gumbs describes Lorde’s
importance, “The shape of Audre Lorde’s impact
includes her achievements, her words, her losses and everything
she went through that we should not
repeat as if we did not know.” (17) In a similar vein, Leah
Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (2018) describes
her connection to Anzaldúa in a letter addressed to her,
Gloria, we meet in bed. You never said you were disabled, that I
can find — every inch of evidence you left
resisted that label. But whatever you felt about that world, this

is where you dreamed and lived too. This
56
place of bodily difference, a tired body that comes in pain and
suffering, that allows us to work part-time
weird jobs, to rest, to fly. (182)
Both Gumbs and Piepzna-Samarasinha point towards their
ancestral kinship with Lorde and Anzaldúa.
Such restructurings of disability kinship tap into the project of
critical disability studies methodology and
“Crip of Color Critique.”
Kim (2017) describes a pointed practice of critical disability
studies methodology (or potential
methodologies), which she calls a “Crip of Color Critique,” that
centers Women of Color and Queer of
Color scholarship and activisms,
[a] crip-of-color critique thus aligns itself with the analysis of
state violence central to the works of [Cathy]
Cohen and other women-of-color/queer-of-color feminists,
which — in distinction from nationalist,
identitarian, or rights-based movements — refuse to frame the

nation-state as a haven of protection. (5)
Kim’s imagining of a crip-of-color critique would then
importantly see Lorde and Anzaldúa as ancestors in
terms of their scholarship and activisms, even as they extend
past the limits of what some might see as the
limits of disability studies or rights movements. Returning to
Minich’s (2017) notion of disability studies
as a methodology, she emphasizes looking at “social justice
roots” outside the disability rights movement,
[f]urthermore, when I locate the origins of the field in social
justice work, I mean not only the widespread
U.S. disability rights movement but also other movements for
the liberation of people with bodies and minds
that are devalued or pathologized but who do not consistently
identify (or are not consistently identified) as
disabled. (6)
I want to take up this project that Kim and Minich describe and
think about how the activisms of Marsha
P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, as manifested via STAR, can be
constituted as part of a disability genealogy
in a similar vein to Lorde or Anzaldúa.
The present remembrance of Johnson and Rivera’s activisms
often limits them to their

involvement in the Stonewall Riots and ignores the organizing
that Johnson, Rivera, and STAR were
doing before and after the Riots. In the remainder of this article,
I focus on the activist works of Johnson,
Rivera, and STAR to highlight how we can situate them within
in a genealogy of disability activism. STAR
described part of their project as “[t]he end to all exploitive
practices of doctors and psychiatrists who
work in the field of transvestism” (Cohen 2008, 36). This
accompanies the call for, “[t]he immediate end
of all police harassment and arrest of transvestites and gay
street people, and the release of transvestites
and gay street people from all prisons and all other political
prisoners” (36).13 Stephen Cohen (2008)
notes:
Grounded in the rigors of street life, street transvestites
developed a platform to address injustices — lethal
prison conditions, police harassment, an inimical legal and
mental health system, discrimination in housing
and employment—and demand social revolution. STAR, along
with GLF [Gay Liberation Front] and GAA
[Gay Activist Alliance] organized pickets, visited prisons and
mental institutions, publicized inmate
mistreatment, and helped form the Gay Community Prison

Committee. (92-93)
57
It is frustrating because many of the goals that STAR strove for
are still largely out of reach for many
Trans Women to this day. To address these issues, STAR built
community space for street kids and the
gay and trans community.
Beyond the rest of their activisms, STAR did two things to hold
space for gay and trans
community. First, along with the GLF (Gay Liberation Front),
they helped found the collectively run Gay
Community Center (GCC). The GCC was
[a] place to dance in. A place to hold classes on things we’ll
need to survive and grow: karate, theatre, crafts,
discussion groups, history of gay oppression. We need to
provide services for the gay community: legal,
medical, housing, jobs, a gay switchboard. A free food program,
day care for children. We need to have a
space in which to start to understand the things that keep us
apart: sexism, racism, loneliness, fear. We need

to discover what we can become as fully actualized gay people.
(Cohen 2008, 130)
STAR had representation in GCC’s Collective, which allowed
them some influence in the decision- making
process, allowed to have a monthly benefit for STAR, yet their
request to have their own room was denied
(130). Second, STAR created a house, STAR House, for street
kids to have a place to live. Cohen furthers
that, “STAR House was significant as the first communal shelter
on record that explicitly served street
transvestites. It provided sustenance, emotional support, and a
sense of spiritual harmony. Free gender
expression was the norm” (131). Johnson, Rivera, and the other
older leadership of STAR became
maternal figures for many of the street kids they housed. They
would work the street in order to pay for
rent for the building. STAR House also served as the organizing
center for all of STAR’s activisms. Rusty
Moore, co-founder of Transy House, where Rivera lived during
her final years, describes the importance
of STAR House and the organization, “I think the historical
significance of STAR is that it was pr obably
the first political/social initiative of the trans community in
New York City, and certainly the first focused

on the problems of throw-away youth in our community” (131).
Even though the organization collapsed in
1973 following the Christopher Street Liberation Day,14 they
had intentions to expand the work of the
organization. Johnson explained the future goals of STAR,
[w]e’re going to be doing STAR dances, open a new STAR
home, a STAR telephone, 24 hours a day, a STAR
recreation . . . And plus we’re going to have a bail fund for
every transvestite that’s arrested, to see if we can
get a STAR lawyer to help transvestites in court. (Untorelli
Press n.d., 29)
For Johnson, STAR was not only an organization to protest
against the oppression experienced by
transvestites but was also connected with the pride in being
“gay” and trans. When asked about trans
people in small cities and cities without STAR, Johnson
responded:
Start a STAR of their own. I think if transvestites don’t stand
up for themselves, nobody else is going to stand
up for transvestites. If a transvestite doesn’t say I’m gay and
I’m proud and I’m a transvestite, then nobody
else is going to hop up there and say I’m gay and I’m proud and
I’m a transvestite, because they’re not
transvestites. The life of a transvestite is very hard, especially

when she goes out on the streets. (28)
It is key to understand that an underlying importance in the
formation and activities of STAR was the
need for trans people to look out for another because gay
activists were unable to do so.
Returning to disability genealogies, the activism of STAR
reflects several practices of Disability
Justice activism. Disability Justice activist Patty Berne lists the
“10 Principles for Disability Justice” as:
58
intersectionality, the leadership of the most impacted, anti -
capitalist politic, cross-movement solidarity,
recognizing wholeness, sustainability, commitment to cross-
disability solidarity, interdependence,
collective access, and collective liberation (Sins Invalid 2016,
16-19). Many of these same principles are
evident in the activisms of STAR In their Mission they
declared:
We want a revolutionary peoples’ government, where
transvestites, street people, women, homosexuals,
puerto ricans, indians, and all oppressed people are free, and not

fucked over by this government who treat
us like the scum of the earth and kills us off like flies, one by
one, and throws us into jail to rot. This
government who spends millions of dollars to go to the moon,
and lets the poor Americans starve to death.
(Cohen 2008, 37)
The world that STAR imagined was one where not only trans
and “gay” people were free—but everyone.
To do so, they sought activist alliances not only with the GLF
and GAA, which began to disintegrate as the
two organizations continually distanced themselves from trans
people, but also other radical
organizations of the time. STAR marched with Young Lords of
New York to protest police violence and
built connections with the Black Panther Party (Cohen 2008,
131). Additionally, it is vital to acknowledge
STAR’s activism against psychiatric institutions and other
disabling institutions and structures. It is also
important to think of Johnson and Rivera as disabled figures, a
detail that often gets lost.
STAR emerged out of sit-in protests in Weinstein Hall at New
York University (NYU), which
denied the use of the space to the gay community. Following
their eviction from Weinstein, a protest in

the Fall of 1970 against NYU mixed with the protest against
Bellevue Psychiatric Prison. Not only did
STAR, which had organized shortly after the Weinstein protests,
demand that NYU provide,
(1) Space for a 24-hour gay community center, to be controlled
by the gay community;
(2) Open enrollment and free tuition for gay people and all
people from the communities NYU oppresses;
[and]
(3) All NYU students, employees, and faculty have the right to
be openly gay, without fear of retaliation by
NYU.
But they also demanded:
(1) An end to oppression of homosexuals and all people in
Bellevue Psychiatric Prison—the end of shock
treatment, drugs, imprisonment, and mental poisoning; [and]
(2) Free medical care, dental care, and preventive medicine
under community control, including free
abortions controlled by community women, with no forced
abortion and no forced sterilization, without
regard to age or obtaining permission from anybody. (Cohen
2008, 122)

STAR, in the same activist breath, were arguing for space for
the gay and trans community, self-
determination of their health, and against the institutional
violence of medical institutions. It is critical to
understand that STAR was fighting against the violence of
mental institutions at the same time that
disability activists were demanding for deinstitutionalization.
While there is no historical record of
collaboration between STAR and disability activists of the time,
the two were making the same demands
about the violence their communities were experiencing.
Writing in the aftermath of Marsha Johnson’s death, Rivera
noted that,
59
Marsha had been on SSI (Social Security Disability) for quite
some time because she had several nervous
breakdowns. She had been locked up several times in Bellevue
and Manhattan State . . . Marsha lived in her
own realm, and she saw things through different eyes. She liked
to stay in that world. (Untorelli Press n.d.,
44)

Not only was STAR protesting against the violence of mental
institutions at large, but they were also
protesting against the violence Johnson, and several other STAR
and community members experienced
while in these institutions as people with psychiatric
disabilities. They fought against institutional
violence based on what disability activists and scholars might
consider their experiences as disabled
people. This intersected with their gender and sexual identities,
which was institutionally rendered as
deviant, and in need of treatment. STAR’s activisms were very
much rooted in speaking against the
disabling violence they experienced and sought to make a better
world for those that were marginalized
from other activist campaigns.
In this approach to STAR, it is necessary to center the kinds of
disabling violence they protested
against but also the ways they strove to create a better world for
their community. They wanted to build a
world that was rid of oppression not just against trans people,
but all oppressed people. If disability
studies is moving towards a genealogy that sees figures like
Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and Gloria

Anzaldúa as disability ancestors, I argue that there is an
imperative to include activists like Marsha
Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and STAR To do so would center the
activist roots of a critical disability
methodology, as Minich (2017) desires, and the breadth of
potential trans and disability genealogies. By
centering STAR and its activisms, we practice the possibilities
of new critical disability methodologies and
genealogies. By centering STAR, I am suggesting that the core
of a feminist disability studies and trans
studies should be in the activisms of Trans Women of Color, as
they have already been doing the work
that these fields pursue via their activisms. This is especially
crucial for the project of feminist disability
studies which has thus far alienated itself from Trans Feminine
people. Centering the histories and lives of
Trans Women of Color is especially important in that anti-
blackness and the ugliest forms of
transmisogyny emerge here. The activisms of STAR, along with
the principles of Disability Justice, point
us to activisms available to us and future generations.
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors for their help, Orion Benedict
for their support, and Qwo-Li Driskill whose guidance
has greatly shaped this project. I’m also indebted to the
activism of Black Trans Women, such as Tourmaline, who
have been doing amazing work revitalizing these histories.
Endnotes
1. Tourmaline is continuing her work on Mary Jones in her
upcoming film, Mary of Ill Fame.
2. I capitalize “Trans Women,” “Transfeminism,” and “Trans
Feminine” to mark their status as political and
politically affecting identities and categories. Similarly, I
capitalize Black throughout this article.
3. Koyama also points out that Transfeminism is open to
“queers, intersex people, trans men, and non-
transwomen” but that it must center Trans Women.

60
4. I use the label “Trans Women” to refer to Trans Women,
Trans Femme, and Trans Feminine folks. This is
an imperfect label and I want to recognize how I use the label as
not perfectly encapsulate the gender identities of
non-Trans Women Trans Feminine and Trans Femme folks.
5. In As Black As Resistance (2018), William C. Anderson and
Zoé Samudzi and describe patriarchy as
pivoting around Transmisogyny at its core. I share their
sentiment here.
6. “Cishetero” is shorthand for Cisgender-heterosexual. In other
words, gender identities and sexualities
deemed “normative” by society.
7. This is a process of scholars in academic disciplines claiming
their works as “original works” works within
settler colonial logics, which claims ideas and intellectual space
as “new” or “empty” without acknowledging the work
done, often by Black, Indigenous Peoples, and People of Color.
8. Several texts within the field which engage “feminist
disability studies” do not engage Trans Women.

Feminist disability studies’ texts such as Rosemarie Garland-
Thomson’s (2005) review of the sub-field, Kim Q. Hall’s
(2011) anthology with the same title, and Stacy Clifford
Simplican’s (2017) work on feminist disability studies
methodology would all be richer and more nuanced if they
addressed the role Trans Women potentially have in
relation to the field.
9. Gender Identity Dysphoria was added to the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM) in 1980. In 2013, the diagnosis was replaced with
Gender Dysphoria, which remains in the DSM manual.
10. I think that Baril and Leblanc’s claims are a bit of an
exaggeration. There are scholars who engage both
fields and discuss people who are both Trans and Disabled,
most notably Eli Clare.
11. I am choosing to read these figures as Trans Women despite
the conflicting historical records on how they
gender-identified.
12. I believe disability studies scholars should look at Raymond
and other “radical feminist” writings in order
to unpack how they describe the “natural” gendered

body/bodies.
13. At the time, “gay” was an umbrella term that often
incorporated what we might recognize as a pluralities
of genders and sexualities.
14.Rivera suggested the collapse of STAR in part on lesbian
women and other gays who ostracized
transvestites.
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Volume 15(1) What's so 'critical' about critical disability
studies? 47
What's so 'critical' about critical disability studies?
Helen Meekosha and Russell Shuttleworth•

This article self-reflexively turns the focus on disability studies
to consider why critical
disability studies (COS) is emerging as the preferred
nomenclature and whether this
constitutes a radical paradigm shift, or simply signifies a
maturing of the discipline.
We first trace the emergence of disability studies as part of the
disability rights
movement, which harboured a primarily materialist critique
against the normative
status quo. The diversification of critical social theory that has
occurred in recent
years has opened up new modes of critical enquiry. Yet there
are nevertheless several
principles that we feel it is important to maintain and we briefly
outline these: (1) the
irreducibility of social life to objective facts; (2) the
requirement of linking theory with
praxis in the struggle for an autonomous and participatory
society; (3) the necessity
that a discipline or field of study be aware of its own historicity
and critically reflect
on its conceptual framework; and (4) the need to engage in a
dialogue with other
cultures on the issues and concepts of current significance. We
subsequently trace
some of the areas where critical theory has been employed in
the study of disability.
Critical social thought, grounded in the principles we discuss
and developing
innovative lines of enquiry, has the potential to render a wide
range of issues and
discourses heretofore obscured visible in the study of disability.
Introduction

As with any new discourse, disability studies must claim space
in a contested area, trace its
continuities and discontinuities, argue for its existence, and
justify its assertions
- Lennard Davis (1997, xv)
The politics of knowledge creation is a critical dimension in the
success of any social
movement. The creation of knowledge and meaning is also
implicated in maintaining
Helen Meekosha is Associate Professor in the School of Social
Sciences and International Studies and
Board Member of the Disability Studies and Research Centre,
University of New South Wales, Sydney.
Ernail: <[email protected]>.
RusseU Shuttleworth is Lecturer in the Graduate Program in
Sexual Health within the Disability
and Community Faculty Research Group, Faculty of Health
Sciences, University of Sydney. Ernail:
<[email protected]>.
48 Australian Journal of Human Rights 2009
structures of control and exclusion. In tracing the emergence of
disability studies as
part of the disability rights movement, this article will be

mindful of these sometimes
paradoxical dimensions in the politics of knowledge creation. In
any academic
offshlxlt of a social movement, the terms of engagement and
debate must adapt
to newly perceived articulations of oppressive structures, even
if some of those
structures are discerned within the movement itself.
This article self-reflexively turns the focus on disability studies
to consider the
question of why critical disability studies (COS) is emerging as
the preferred
nomenclature by many scholars, and whether this constitutes a
radical paradigm
shift or simply signifies a maturing of the discipline. While the
influence of critical
theory in disability studies has often been assumed because of
its critique of the
status quo in the study of disability, the influence of critical
theorists is not always
acknowledged. We seek to unpack this complexity in the
formulation of COS.
The diversification of critical social theory that has occurred in
recent years has
opened up new modes of critical enquiry. Yet there are
nevertheless several principles
that we feel it is important to maintain and we briefly examine
these. We then review
where critical theory has been used in disability research. COS
is still in its infancy,
so a review of the literature, as such, is not appropriate, but we
intend to draw out
instances of scholarly work that we consider reflect some of the
major developments

in critical theory. Emancipation is a cornerstone of critical
theory, so it is inevitable
that COS also encapsulates questions of human rights such as
those identified in the
recent UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities that came into force
in 2008. This article is selective and is intended to stimulate
debate on the meanings
and interpretations of COS, not to provide definitive answers.
Evolution of critical disability studies
Disability studies emerged as a growing area of academic
research and professional
education across much of the Western world in the 1970s and
has continued to
expand into the 21st century. The International Year of
Disabled People in 1981 raised
disability as a human rights issues in the global public
discourse. The rise of the
contemporary disability movement in the latter decades of the
20th century, and the
vocal demand for relevant curricula by disabled people and their
allies, lent weight
to the legitimacy of the new discipline.
The growing presence of disabled people in society, in
particular their presence in
the community following centuries of institutionalisation, has
further contributed to
an awareness of the responsibilities of educational institutions
to disabled citizens.
At the same time, the limitations of medical and individual
pathology models of

studies? 49
disability, in both explaining the situation of disabled people
and enabling their
full citizenship, have resulted in the flowering of new
explanatory paradigms
-particularly in the humanities and social sciences. While the
dominant discourse is
still framed within the concerns of the global north, writers
from the global south and
the majority world are adding their voices to the expanding
discipline (Ariotti 1999;
Ghai 2002; Soldatic and Biyanwila 2006; Watermeyer et
a12006; Ingstad and Reynolds
Whyte 2007; Meekosha 2008).
Disability studies has made an impact on the research agendas
of many other
disciplines. Starting with the social sciences and the humanities,
disability studies has
also been increasingly taken on board by the applied sciences
such as architecture,
design, engineering and, more recently, medicine and pure
science. The Society
for Disability Studies, in its working guidelines, argues that
disability studies is
interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary and that programs in
disability studies
should engage with various disciplinary perspectives (SDS
2009). Thus, disability
studies can be thought of as a critique of specific approaches to
disability; a project to
evolve an interdisciplinary frame that can be incorporated into
multiple disciplines;

and a new sphere of scholarly work that has a similar legitimacy
to women's studies,
black studies and queer studies (Linton 1998; Meekosha 2004).
Disability studies,
as a discipline in its own right (Lorenzo, Mzolisika and
Priestley 2006, 179), boasts
a discrete body of knowledge and research and specialist
journals devoted to the
subject, such as Disability Studies Quarterly and Disability and
Society. Yet a troubling
trend concerns the cooption of some of the language of
disability studies that is
also taking place. More traditional rehabilitation and special
education departments
are re-badging themselves as disability studies, but without
going far enough in
rewriting the script. This is evidenced by courses within
universities whose primary
allegiance is to medical models, while only weakly
acknowledging the sociopolitical
analysis of disability (Longmore 2003; Meekosha and Green
2004).
The term 'critical disability studies' has been increasingly
employed in scholarly
work over the last decade (Tremain 2005; Erevelles 2005;
Meekosha 2006; Pothier
and Devlin 2006; Shildrick 2007a; Gustafson 2007; Roets and
Goodley 2008; Hosking
2008; Campbell 2008), and York University in Canada now
offers a postgraduate
research program in CDS. CDS has accompanied a social,
political and intellectual
re-evaluation of explanatory paradigms used to understand the
lived experience
of disabled people and potential ways forward for social,

political and economic
change. Shildrick (2007a, 233) notes that CDS:
... is broadly aligned with a postconventional theoretical
approach. It seeks to extend and
productively critique the achievements of working through more
modernist paradigms of
disability, such as the social constructionist modeL
There are a number of factors influencing this re-evaluation that
has led to the
development of COS. First, the social model of disability
argued for a conceptual
distinction between 'impairment' as a functional limitation and
'disability' as a socially
generated system of discrimination. This binary way of thinking
about disability
has undergone a number of critiques from feminists, cultural
studies scholars and
postmodernists, which has led to tensions and splits within the
disability studies
community, particularly in Britain (for example, Hughes and
Paterson 1997; Corker
1999; Shakespeare and Watson 2001; Shakespeare 2006). Using
the term 'COS' is a
move away from the preoccupation with binary understandings-
social v medical
model, British v American disability studies, disability v
impairment.

While critical legal studies emerged in opposition to North
American liberalism
and individualism (Pothier and Devlin 2006), COS partly
emerged as an outcome
of the tensions that surfaced as a reaction to the more
authoritarian Marxism and
economic determinism associated with the social model.
Paradoxically, the social
model drew directly from critical theory, examining as it did the
interrelations
between the capitalist system of production, class and
disability, as well as arguing
for an emancipatory perspective within disability studies.
Hosking (2008), in his
formulation of critical disability theory, argues that it includes
the social model of
disability. We believe that it is not a question of including the
social model as one of a
number of separate tools in our analysis, but rather of
incorporating a more complex
conceptual understanding of disability oppression in our work
that nevertheless still
employs key ideas about disability that saw the light of day with
the ascendance of
the social model.
Second, the influx of humanities and cultural studies scholars
with their postmodern
leanings and decentring of subjectivity during the 1990s,
especially in the US, enabled
a more self-conscious focus on critical theorising to take hold in
disability studies. Use
of COS signifies an implicit understanding that the terms of
engagement in disability
studies have changed; that the struggle for social justice and
diversity continues but

on another plane of development - one that is not simply social,
economic and
political, but also psychological, cultural, discursive and carnal.
Evidence for these
new terms of engagement can be seen in the recent openness to
perspectives, such
as psychological and psychoanalytic, that would have been
stigmatised in the past
as reinforcing an individual model of disability (for example,
Goodley and Lawthom
2005; Shildrick 2007b).
A third factor for the divergence of COS from disability studies
concerns the cooption
of the language of disability studies by the institutions of
government, along with
the professional areas of rehabilitation and special education
taught within higher
educational institutions (Meekosha and Dowse 2007). These
traditional human
studies? 51
service professions, for the most part, 'conceive, discuss and
treat disability within
a diagnostic perspective that emphasises individual defi ciency'
(above, 172). The
normalisation and quality of life paradigms, even if subsumed
under the rubric
of disability studies, still carry regulatory and controlling
undertones. We would
call these applied disciplines to task to more fully integrate a
critique of disabling

structures into their approaches) Thus, COS represents a
distancing from those who
have coopted disability studies for simply normalising ends.
Identification with critical race theory, critical legal theory, and
the newly emerging
critical criminology and critical queer studies sets up the fourth
factor. Critical
legal theory, which separated politics and law as separate
discourses, drew on the
Frankfurt School and post-structuralism in its critique of the
dominant ideologies in
legal studies. Critical race theory followed critical legal theory
with an emphasis on
examining racism, discrimination and race as a socially
constructed concept. Critical
race theory recognises the historical context, is interdisciplinary
and works towards
eliminating oppression (Dixson and Rousseau 2006, 4). Thus,
both critical legal
theory and critical race theory have set theoretical, conceptual
and methodological
examples for COS to follow.
What is critical social theory?
Critical social theory, as a group of approaches to the study of
society, has its
origins in the critical theory of the Frankfurt School in the
1930s. The Frankfurt
theorists perceived the historical convergence of capitalism,
bureaucracy and
science as progressively restricting the development of critical
consciousness and an
autonomous society. They moved well beyond the typical
Marxian model of social

analysis to take up issues such as the ascendence of
instrumental reason, the rise of
authoritarianism, and the emergence of the culture industry.
These cultural trends
were viewed as evidence of a crisis for critical reason
(Horkheimer and Adomo 1972;
Horkheimer 1974; 1986; Held 1980).
The current purview of critical social theory appears much
wider than that
envisioned by the first-generation Frankfurt theorists, who were
constrained by the
pressing issues of their day. The current sociopolitical climate
demands that attention
be paid to other crucial issues as well- that is, the crisis of
representation, the rise of
new social movements and identity politics, globalisation, and
the fragmentation and
compartmentalisation of everyday life. Additionally, new
conceptualisations of what
it means to render a critique have further opened up the critical
vista. Post-Marxists,
On this account, see the article by Susan Magasi on integrating
a disability studies perspective into
rehabilitation practice (2008).
52 Australiau Journal of Humau Rights 2009
post-structuralists, postmodernists, post-positive and critical
realists problematise
these issues, among others, and apply diverse methods of
critique. While some retain

a faith in the emancipatory project and the struggle for
autonomy, others are more
skeptical of this project's possibility of success (Torney and
Townshend 2006). A
healthy scepticism, of course, has its place in critical thinking,
but must nevertheless
maintain its applicability to emancipatory political practice. In
our view, it is important
to incorporate the following four principles in the current
conceptualisation of CDS.
Critical social theory is i"educible to facts
Critical social theory rejects a vision of the social sciences
modelled on the natural
sciences. While critical social theory is not averse to
strategically employing
quantitative approaches, it views the working of society and
culture as much more
dynamic than what can be captured quantitatively. Undergoing
continual historical
and sociocultural transformation, society cannot be described
adequately without
reference to changing social relations and cultural meanings.
A challenge to the very way the status quo is construed
permeated the Frankfurt
theorists' writings from the beginning. Their early criticism of
appearances - that
is, the raw facts of a case and exaltation of the underlying
social relations obscured
by a focus on their facticity - while conceptually connected to
Marx's analysis
of ideology and the economic infrastructure (Marcuse 1965),
more importantly
opens out to a wholesale condemnation of scientistic practice -

that is, belief in
an atheoretical, context-free science. Indeed, the Frankfurt
theorists, and especially
Horkheimer (1974; 1986) in his sustained critique of empiricism
and positivism as
naively viewing as 'real' that which is constituted by a narrowly
construed reason,
bequeathed to critical theorists one of their major principles.
Their critique is aimed
squarely at maintaining a space for the application of critical
reason in the struggle
for autonomy and a more participatory and egalitarian society.
Critical social theory links theory with praxis in the struggle for
an
autonomous and participatory society
While the cultural specificity of notions such as civil rights and
equality cannot be
denied, it is our belief that they have their roots in a more
general understanding
of human protest of suffering, and human need for both
autonomy and social
participation. Analysis of the social processes and cultural
meanings that impinge
on social actors and restrict their ability to reflexively choose a
more participatory
society has been a primary focus of critical social theory.
Moreover, autonomy, as
conceived by critical theorists, has always been a more complex
notion than the
idea of independent living which dominated much of the
discourse on disability

studies? 53
during the 1970s through to the 1990s in the US. Critical
theorists themselves
continue to argue about what precisely constitutes autonomy
and its relation to social
participation (Kalyvas 2001). The defining feature of autonomy
that interweaves
throughout critical theory's history is its meaning as
emancipation from hegemonic
and hierarchical ideologies that structure personal
consciousness, representations,
social relations and practices in everyday life. Critical social
thought is aimed
squarely at revealing the power relational dynamics within
societies as manifested
and reinforced via these seemingly innocuous means, at both the
individual and the
societallevels. Furthermore, this critical analysis of appearances
is specifically meant
to provide insight for the goal of social change towards a
society in which individuals
can discuss and debate the future of their institutions without
the constraints
imposed by power-relational mystifications. Indeed, critical
social theories, whether
more traditional or postmodem, posit certain hierarchies and
structures, processes
or discourses as constraining people's conceptions and
experience (such as false
consciousness, reification, hegemony, metaphysics of presence,
govermentality)
(Agger 1998). Current schools of critical social theory differ in
their approaches to
critique and by the ways in which they elucidate the restrictions

on autonomy.2
Critical social theory is self-aware of its historicity
Since critical social theory recognises the inherent historicity of
society - that it is
susceptible to change - the concepts critical social theory
employs are always an
investment in bringing about social change. However, critical
theory also recognises
its own situatedness within a particular historical moment.
Thus, it is obliged to
maintain a critical self-reflexivity toward its own theories and
praxis. It is not as if
an unmasking of the oppressive dynamics within a particular
society or concerning
a particular social group can be theorised and acted upon
definitively. The ever-
changing social relations, cultural meanings and thus self-
understandings necessitate
a hyper-vigilance towards the possibility of changed terms of
engagement. In
hindsight, theories that were once thought to adequately
elucidate inequalities
and oppressive circumstances and practices are often flawed in
some way. This
is exemplified early on in the history of the Frankfurt School as
it broke from a
traditional Marxist materialism, viewing it as deterministic and
inadequate to
comprehend the full extent of modem structures of hierarchy
and domination. It is
this commitment to critical self-reflexivity that has sustained
critical social theory
2 Castoriadis (1987) provides an illustrative example. Like the

Frankfurt School, he criticises Western
society's overvaluing of instrumental rationality, but posits that
the West's obsession with instrumentalism
ironically indicates a cultural imaginary that has been divested
of a raison d'etre. Function thus simply
stands for itself and rationality loses its relation to critique,
which obscures our relation to autonomy
-that is, our ability to perceive ourselves as self-instituting
beings and society.
throughout the waxing and waning of many other theoretical
perspectives (such
as functionalism, structuralism and existentialism) and that can
be considered the
hallmark of a mature field of study committed to social
transformation. Thus, the
upswell of critique within disability studies during the past
decade of its 'big idea',
the socially constructed exclusions inherent in materialist and
political structures,
may signify the maturation of disability enquiry.
Critical social theory engages in dialogue among cultures
Calhoun states that critical theory is 'a theory that is self-
conscious about its
historicity, its place in dialogue among cultures, its
irreducibility to facts, and

its engagement in the practical world' (Calhoun 1995, 11).
While we would
agree with him on three of these counts, we beg to differ
regarding critical
theory's engagement in dialogue among cultures. Calhoun is
likely projecting an
international ideal here. Critical theory, it can be argued,
conceived in Western
Europe and North America, has traditionally not taken on board
the perspectives
of non-Western cultures. As Held argues, 'the importance of
non-European
societies in world politics .. . [is not] adequately recognised by
the critical
theorists' (1980, 400). More recent social theorists, such as
Foucault, also focus on
a critical analysis of the emergence of Western institutions and
their discourses
(for example, Foucault 1978, Burchell Gordon and Miller
1991)- or, as in the
case of Castoriadis, explicitly locate the origins of critical self-
reflection of our
instituted traditions, the politics of autonomy and the impetus
for social change
in that fulcrum of Western society, ancient Greece (1997).
However, the relevance
to non-Western societies of this history and concepts derived
from the study of
Western societies is an issue that demands more attention than
it has received}
While critical theory that elides engaging with non-Western
scholarship is not
without its significance, we would call for an explicit dialogue
with human rights
and emancipatory thinking from the diversity of cultures. This
is crucial for COS

when the global majority of disabled people are excluded from
the dominant
disability discourse.
These then are what we consider key principles to incorporate
in the application
of critical social theory to the struggle for emancipation of
marginalised groups,
including disabled people. What follows is a discussion of some
topical areas in COS
in which critical social thought has been and is being brought to
bear.
3 For example, Herdt and Stoller (1990) criticise Foucault's
claim that sexuality becomes central to self-
constitution in Western society with cross-cultural evidence that
'sex talk' relating to the self occurs in
many societies.
studies? 55
Critical social theory and disability studies
The trials and tribulations of emancipatory research
A critical, emancipatory orientation lies at the core of disability
studies' raison
d'etre (Mercer 2004). A social transformative perspective
underlies the search for
knowledge in this field of study. As Pfeiffer (2003, 104) notes,
an implication of 'the

disability studies paradigm' is progressive social change.
However, the influence of
critical theory, especially in the UK, was early on narrowly
construed within certain
Marxist parameters. The Frankfurt School's broader vision for
critical theory was
largely ignored in favour of a heavily materialist-oriented
understanding of disabled
people's social situation in modem society. Indeed, in the 1980s
and early 1990s, even
though disability studies was not primarily about class struggle,
blame for disabled
people's oppression was laid clearly at the feet of economic
relations in capitalistic
society, with allusions to an agrarian past in which disabled
people were, if not
idyllically, at least pragmatically integrate d into the family
system (Finkelstein 1980;
Oliver 1990).
The 1980s and 1990s saw the ascendance of participatory
research approaches, which
were influenced by Habermas's (1973) differentiation of
knowledge constitutive
interests - positivistic, interpretative and emancipatory. In the
UK, disability
studies developed a radicalised interpretation of participatory
research, a so-called
emancipatory approach (Oliver 1992; Stone and Priestley 1996),
which while
democratising the research process diminished the conceptual
contribution of
the researcher. The researcher's methodological and theoretical
expertise were
considered technical skills in the rearrangement of
commonsense precepts, not

critical-interpretive skills, in the analysis of interaction and
meaning and in the
unmasking of ideologies and hierarchies. Further, a naive
opposing of emancipatory
research to positivistic and interpretive research downplayed the
significance of the
latter kinds of approaches in a broader understanding of
autonomy (the importance
of disability statistics and politically informed interpretations of
disabled people's
embodied lived experience). One assumption in this
emancipatory discourse was
that disabled people could reach a consensus on what
constituted emancipation
(Davis 2000). The result was over a decade of dogmatic
policing of disciplinary,
researcher, theoretical and practice boundaries. Those who
argued for a widening of
the disability studies agenda, both empirically and theoretically,
were perceived as
heretical to the materialist truths that constituted disabled
people's social situation
(for example, Morris 1991; Shakespeare 1994; Corker 1998;
1999; Meekosha 1998).
In hindsight, this view of emancipation appears simplistic. In
fact, the sheer diversity
of disabled people - that is, the variety and degrees of their
impairments and their
intersection with other relevant social categories of experience -
demands a much

broader and contextual interrogation of their restrictions. To
that effect, CDS draws
from a much more eclectic mix of critical theories than earlier
work in disability
studies.
Dichotomising disability
In CDS the question has become how to conceptualise a
diversity within a radical
agenda to restructure cultural meanings, social processes and a
carnally relevant
politics. Mairian Corker, a British sociolinguist, feminist, deaf
disability studies
scholar, was at the forefront of the turn from a strictly narrowly
conceived materialist
approach to this broader conception of disability studies - one
that included
interrogation of discourses and cultural meanings and
theorisation of diversity.
During the late 1990s, she began employing a post-structural
critique to challenge
dichotomous and binary modes of thinking and models of
disability (see, for example,
Corker 1998; 1999). Using the post-structural notions of jacques
Derrida, among other
postmodern theorists, she deconstructs the dichotomous,
modernist assumptions
underlying the social model of disability- that is,
individual/society, impairment/
disability - and notes their hierarchical ordering and instability.
Recognising that
'the social model of disability' has been hugely pragmatic for
disabled people within
certain political parameters, Corker contended that it
nevertheless could not easily

articulate an understanding of the complexity of postmodern
culture with its social
flux, the contextual fluidity of identity formations and
transformations, and changing
micro-macro social relations and cultural meanings. Corker
argued for a dialogic
relation between impairment and disability, not an analytical
privileging of one over
the other, in a broader approach that adds to the preoccupation
with structure a
discursive theory of communication.
One of Corker's aims was to open up the productive space
between modernist
dichotomies of individual-society and impairment-disability for
exploration, in
order to reveal the issues and agency of disabled people who
were overlooked by
modernist sociopolitical models of disability (Shuttleworth
2006). Corker's thinking
demonstrates a disciplinary self-reflexivity that is a hallmark of
critical social theory
and her incisive critique of the 'social model' was ahead of its
time (see, for example,
Corker 1998; 1999). While according the social model its
historical and pragmatic due,
she argued for a critical re-evaluation of the very model that
had garnered personal
and political power for disabled people. Of course, there were
others in the late 1990s
who were also arguing for a reassessment of disability binaries,
including Meekosha
(1998) and Hughes and Paterson (1997; Paterson and Hughes
1999), and this stance is
almost de rigueur in CDS today.

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