Talia Mae Bettcher
Biographic Data
| ID | 192871 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Talia Mae Bettcher |
| GIVEN NAMES | Talia Mae |
| FAMILY NAME | Bettcher |
| SIGNATURE | BETTCHER T M |
| AFFILIATIONS | California State University Los Angeles |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 172 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Feminist Philosophical Engagements with Trans Studies
In this chapter Bettcher examines feminist philosophical engagements with transgender studies. In the first section, she discusses the emergence of trans studies as well as the recent development of trans philosophy within the discipline. The latter makes the question of feminist philosophical engagement more complex. To what extent does the feminist philosophy engage with trans philosophy? To what extent does it merely philosophize about trans p…
What Is Trans Philosophy
In this article, I explore the question “What is trans philosophy?” by viewing trans philosophy as a contribution to the field of trans studies. This requires positioning the question vis à vis Judith Butler's notion of philosophy's Other (that is, the philosophical work done outside of the boundaries of professional philosophy), as trans studies has largely grown from this Other. It also requires taking seriously Susan Stryker's distinction betw…
Trans Feminism: Recent Philosophical Developments
This article introduces trans feminism as an intersectional analysis of sexist and transphobic forms of oppressions as well as current and historical feminist and trans conflicts over the inclusion of trans women. The first half examines recent feminist philosophical efforts to provide an analysis of the concept woman that is inclusive of trans women. The second examines recent responses to trans-exclusive feminist positions. The article conclude…
Theorizing Closeness: A Trans Feminist Conversation
Pelagia Goulimari interviews Talia Bettcher on core issues and concepts in Women Writing Across Culture, both in relation to Bettcher's work and in the context of wider debates in feminist, queer and transgender theory. How to theorize "woman," "trans woman," "trans woman of colour," "trans feminism"? How to put together experience, local knowledge, and communication across worlds? How to amplify experiments crossing the boundaries between theory…
The role of the illusion in the construction of erotic desire: Narratives from heterosexual men who have occasional sex with transgender women
Little is known about men's sexual desire for and erotic attraction to male-to-female transgender women. To better understand how erotic desire is constructed, this study examined the narratives of a sample of heterosexual men who had had an occasional sexual encounter with a transgender woman. Open-ended qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 heterosexual men who reported at least one sexual encounter with a transgender woman in the previ…
A Conversation with Jeanne Córdova
This interview with long-time Los Angeles–based feminist, lesbian, and butch activist Jeanne Córdova, conducted by TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly guest editor and editorial board member Talia Bettcher in June and July 2015, explores the relationship between butch and transgender identities and the place of transgender issues in feminist and lesbian histories and cultures. It pays particular attention to the involvement of transsexual lesbian …
Trapped in the Wrong Theory: Rethinking Trans Oppression and Resistance
In this essay, I defend an account of trans oppression and resistance that departs from the prevailing transgender model. While I show why both the “trapped in the wrong body” model and the transgender model are problematic, I also illuminate how the former can be seen as a resistant narrative. The new account has two key ideas. First, I draw from María Lugones’s work to defend a model of multiple meanings, arguing that the traditional accounts a…
Transphobia
This section includes eighty-six short original essays commissioned for the inaugural issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Written by emerging academics, community-based writers, and senior scholars, each essay in this special issue, “Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a Twenty-First-Century Transgender Studies,” revolves around a particular keyword or concept. Some contributions focus on a concept central to transgender studies; other…
When Selves Have Sex: What the Phenomenology of Trans Sexuality Can Teach About Sexual Orientation
In this article, Bettcher argues that sexual attraction must be reconceptualized in light of transgender experience. In particular, Bettcher defends the theory of "erotic structuralism," which replaces an exclusively other-directed account of gendered attraction with one that includes a gendered eroticization of self as an essential component. This erotic experience of self is necessary for other-directed gendered desire, where the two are bound …
Full‐Frontal Morality: The Naked Truth about Gender
This paper examines Harold Garfinkel's notion of the natural attitude about sex and his claim that it is fundamentally moral in nature. The author looks beneath the natural attitude in order to explain its peculiar resilience and oppressive force. There she reveals a moral order grounded in the dichotomously sexed bodies so constituted through boundaries governing privacy and decency. In particular, naked bodies are sex‐differentiated within a sy…
Berkeley's Theory of Mind: Some New Models1
Berkeley didn't write very much about his 'philosophy of mind' and what he did write is rather perplexing and perhaps inconsistent. The most basic problem is that it just isn't clear what a mind (or, more accurately, a spirit) is for Berkeley. Unsurprisingly, many interpretations tend to understand Berkeleian spirit in models provided by other philosophers - interpretations in which Berkeleian spirit turns out to be a close cousin of the Cartesia…
Trans Identities and First-Person Authority
Trans studies constitute part of the coming-to-voice of transpeople, long the theorized and researched objects of sexology, psychiatry, and feminist theory. Sandy Stone’s pioneering “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto” sought the end of monolithic medical and feminist accounts of transsexuality to reveal a multiplicity of trans-authored narratives.1 My goal is a better understanding of what it is for transpeople to come to this …
Pretenders to the Throne
Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers: On Transphobic Violence and the Politics of Illusion
This essay examines the stereotype that transgender people are “deceivers” and the stereotype's role in promoting and excusing transphobic violence. The stereotype derives from a contrast between gender presentation (appearance) and sexed body (concealed reality). Because gender presentation represents genital status, Bettcher argues, people who “misalign” the two are viewed as deceivers. The author shows how this system of gender presentation as…
Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers: On Transphobic Violence and the Politics of Illusion
Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit: Consciousness, Ontology and the Elusive Subject
The author provides a new interpretation of Berkeley's conception of spirit and its links with self-consciousness, as a way into his immaterialist metaphysics. Along the way, she sheds new light on Descartes' cogito and Hume's bundle theory of the self
Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers: On Transphobic Violence and the Politics of Illusion
This essay examines the stereotype that transgender people are “deceivers” and the stereotype's role in promoting and excusing transphobic violence. The stereotype derives from a contrast between gender presentation (appearance) and sexed body (concealed reality). Because gender presentation represents genital status, Bettcher argues, people who “misalign” the two are viewed as deceivers. The author shows how this system of gender presentation as…
When Selves Have Sex: What the Phenomenology of Trans Sexuality Can Teach About Sexual Orientation
In this article, Bettcher argues that sexual attraction must be reconceptualized in light of transgender experience. In particular, Bettcher defends the theory of "erotic structuralism," which replaces an exclusively other-directed account of gendered attraction with one that includes a gendered eroticization of self as an essential component. This erotic experience of self is necessary for other-directed gendered desire, where the two are bound …
Full‐Frontal Morality: The Naked Truth about Gender
This paper examines Harold Garfinkel's notion of the natural attitude about sex and his claim that it is fundamentally moral in nature. The author looks beneath the natural attitude in order to explain its peculiar resilience and oppressive force. There she reveals a moral order grounded in the dichotomously sexed bodies so constituted through boundaries governing privacy and decency. In particular, naked bodies are sex‐differentiated within a sy…
Transphobia
This section includes eighty-six short original essays commissioned for the inaugural issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Written by emerging academics, community-based writers, and senior scholars, each essay in this special issue, “Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a Twenty-First-Century Transgender Studies,” revolves around a particular keyword or concept. Some contributions focus on a concept central to transgender studies; other…
What Is Trans Philosophy
In this article, I explore the question “What is trans philosophy?” by viewing trans philosophy as a contribution to the field of trans studies. This requires positioning the question vis à vis Judith Butler's notion of philosophy's Other (that is, the philosophical work done outside of the boundaries of professional philosophy), as trans studies has largely grown from this Other. It also requires taking seriously Susan Stryker's distinction betw…
Trans Feminism: Recent Philosophical Developments
This article introduces trans feminism as an intersectional analysis of sexist and transphobic forms of oppressions as well as current and historical feminist and trans conflicts over the inclusion of trans women. The first half examines recent feminist philosophical efforts to provide an analysis of the concept woman that is inclusive of trans women. The second examines recent responses to trans-exclusive feminist positions. The article conclude…
Theorizing Closeness: A Trans Feminist Conversation
Pelagia Goulimari interviews Talia Bettcher on core issues and concepts in Women Writing Across Culture, both in relation to Bettcher's work and in the context of wider debates in feminist, queer and transgender theory. How to theorize "woman," "trans woman," "trans woman of colour," "trans feminism"? How to put together experience, local knowledge, and communication across worlds? How to amplify experiments crossing the boundaries between theory…
Pretenders to the Throne
Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers: On Transphobic Violence and the Politics of Illusion
Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers: On Transphobic Violence and the Politics of Illusion
This essay examines the stereotype that transgender people are “deceivers” and the stereotype's role in promoting and excusing transphobic violence. The stereotype derives from a contrast between gender presentation (appearance) and sexed body (concealed reality). Because gender presentation represents genital status, Bettcher argues, people who “misalign” the two are viewed as deceivers. The author shows how this system of gender presentation as…
Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers: On Transphobic Violence and the Politics of Illusion
Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit: Consciousness, Ontology and the Elusive Subject
The author provides a new interpretation of Berkeley's conception of spirit and its links with self-consciousness, as a way into his immaterialist metaphysics. Along the way, she sheds new light on Descartes' cogito and Hume's bundle theory of the self
Pretenders to the Throne
Trans Identities and First-Person Authority
Trans studies constitute part of the coming-to-voice of transpeople, long the theorized and researched objects of sexology, psychiatry, and feminist theory. Sandy Stone’s pioneering “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto” sought the end of monolithic medical and feminist accounts of transsexuality to reveal a multiplicity of trans-authored narratives.1 My goal is a better understanding of what it is for transpeople to come to this …
Full‐Frontal Morality: The Naked Truth about Gender
This paper examines Harold Garfinkel's notion of the natural attitude about sex and his claim that it is fundamentally moral in nature. The author looks beneath the natural attitude in order to explain its peculiar resilience and oppressive force. There she reveals a moral order grounded in the dichotomously sexed bodies so constituted through boundaries governing privacy and decency. In particular, naked bodies are sex‐differentiated within a sy…
Berkeley's Theory of Mind: Some New Models1
Berkeley didn't write very much about his 'philosophy of mind' and what he did write is rather perplexing and perhaps inconsistent. The most basic problem is that it just isn't clear what a mind (or, more accurately, a spirit) is for Berkeley. Unsurprisingly, many interpretations tend to understand Berkeleian spirit in models provided by other philosophers - interpretations in which Berkeleian spirit turns out to be a close cousin of the Cartesia…
Trapped in the Wrong Theory: Rethinking Trans Oppression and Resistance
In this essay, I defend an account of trans oppression and resistance that departs from the prevailing transgender model. While I show why both the “trapped in the wrong body” model and the transgender model are problematic, I also illuminate how the former can be seen as a resistant narrative. The new account has two key ideas. First, I draw from María Lugones’s work to defend a model of multiple meanings, arguing that the traditional accounts a…
Transphobia
This section includes eighty-six short original essays commissioned for the inaugural issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Written by emerging academics, community-based writers, and senior scholars, each essay in this special issue, “Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a Twenty-First-Century Transgender Studies,” revolves around a particular keyword or concept. Some contributions focus on a concept central to transgender studies; other…
When Selves Have Sex: What the Phenomenology of Trans Sexuality Can Teach About Sexual Orientation
In this article, Bettcher argues that sexual attraction must be reconceptualized in light of transgender experience. In particular, Bettcher defends the theory of "erotic structuralism," which replaces an exclusively other-directed account of gendered attraction with one that includes a gendered eroticization of self as an essential component. This erotic experience of self is necessary for other-directed gendered desire, where the two are bound …
The role of the illusion in the construction of erotic desire: Narratives from heterosexual men who have occasional sex with transgender women
Little is known about men's sexual desire for and erotic attraction to male-to-female transgender women. To better understand how erotic desire is constructed, this study examined the narratives of a sample of heterosexual men who had had an occasional sexual encounter with a transgender woman. Open-ended qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 heterosexual men who reported at least one sexual encounter with a transgender woman in the previ…
A Conversation with Jeanne Córdova
This interview with long-time Los Angeles–based feminist, lesbian, and butch activist Jeanne Córdova, conducted by TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly guest editor and editorial board member Talia Bettcher in June and July 2015, explores the relationship between butch and transgender identities and the place of transgender issues in feminist and lesbian histories and cultures. It pays particular attention to the involvement of transsexual lesbian …
Trans Feminism: Recent Philosophical Developments
This article introduces trans feminism as an intersectional analysis of sexist and transphobic forms of oppressions as well as current and historical feminist and trans conflicts over the inclusion of trans women. The first half examines recent feminist philosophical efforts to provide an analysis of the concept woman that is inclusive of trans women. The second examines recent responses to trans-exclusive feminist positions. The article conclude…
Theorizing Closeness: A Trans Feminist Conversation
Pelagia Goulimari interviews Talia Bettcher on core issues and concepts in Women Writing Across Culture, both in relation to Bettcher's work and in the context of wider debates in feminist, queer and transgender theory. How to theorize "woman," "trans woman," "trans woman of colour," "trans feminism"? How to put together experience, local knowledge, and communication across worlds? How to amplify experiments crossing the boundaries between theory…
What Is Trans Philosophy
In this article, I explore the question “What is trans philosophy?” by viewing trans philosophy as a contribution to the field of trans studies. This requires positioning the question vis à vis Judith Butler's notion of philosophy's Other (that is, the philosophical work done outside of the boundaries of professional philosophy), as trans studies has largely grown from this Other. It also requires taking seriously Susan Stryker's distinction betw…
Feminist Philosophical Engagements with Trans Studies
In this chapter Bettcher examines feminist philosophical engagements with transgender studies. In the first section, she discusses the emergence of trans studies as well as the recent development of trans philosophy within the discipline. The latter makes the question of feminist philosophical engagement more complex. To what extent does the feminist philosophy engage with trans philosophy? To what extent does it merely philosophize about trans p…
Sociology (12 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works)