The Podcast for Social Research · The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research

Podcast for Social Research, Episode 90: TRANSgressions — Rights, Wrongs, and Liberal Pieties

·1 hr 49 min·5 clips

Sophie Lewis links trans celebrity politics to “trans cis feminism” inside Zionist propaganda.

1. The Podcast for Social Research episode 90, “TRANSgressions — Rights, Wrongs, and Liberal Pieties,” was recorded mostly live at Bisser Central during Pride Month. 2. Sophie Lewis, Hannah Leffingwell, and Ruth Aberbach appear as Bisser faculty and bring different scholarly priorities to the same live event. 3. The episode asks what happens when trans people in public life commit real or perceived wrongs, and who gets to define the criteria for those wrongs. 4. Lewis frames the talk around “enemy transfeminism” and specifically names Zionism as a current form of it. 5. She contrasts “trans-liberalism” with “trans-materialism,” citing Emma Heaney, Jules Gill-Peterson, Viviane Namaste, and Nat Raha. 6. Lewis names Brianna Wu, Sarah McBride, and Caitlyn Jenner as examples of trans celebrity politics that recycle cis-sexist talking points. 7. She says this politics becomes a “transphobia light” respectability project that naturalizes border policing and sexual citizenship. 8. Lewis then turns to the Israeli examples of Shashar Erez, Mayan Gross, and Dana International. 9. She uses those examples to describe how queer and trans imagery can serve “pinkwashing” and broader propaganda around Gaza and Israel. 10. Lewis ends by arguing for anti-colonial and class solidarity with poor trans people, sex-working trans people, and Indigenous queer people in Palestine. 11. Aberbach’s section begins with Aleksandr Aleksandrov, the birth name of Nadezhda Andreevna Durova, born in 1783 and dead in 1866. 12. She says Aleksandrov left his parents’ home in Sarapul in September 1806 to join the Russian imperial military and “become a man.” 13. She recounts his service in the Prussian campaign, the War of the Fourth Coalition, and the 1812 war against Napoleon. 14. Aberbach notes that Tsar Aleksandr I arranged a meeting after learning of his birth sex and later transferred him to the Mariupol Hussar Regiment. 15. She presents the core scholarly dispute as a choice between nationalist, feminist, queer, and trans readings that often erase his masculinity. 16. Her argument is that Alexandrov’s masculine identity and imperial worldview form one identity, not separate puzzles to be solved. 17. Leffingwell shifts from Russia to The Danish Girl, Eddie Redmayne, and Lily Elbe to discuss how film packages trans stories for mainstream audiences. 18. She connects Lily Elbe to Magnus Hirschfeld, Sandy Stone, Harry Benjamin, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and the 1980 DSM entry for gender identity disorder. 19. The episode’s tone is lecture-like and debate-driven, with live audience energy, dense references, and long argument chains across history, film, and politics. 20. Listeners interested in trans studies, queer theory, and political history will likely stay; listeners wanting a casual chat may not.

As heard by us

A live Pride Month panel that treats trans politics as a question of history, narrative, and public judgment.

Recorded mostly live at Bisser Central for Pride Month, this episode asks a hard question: what happens when trans people in public view are judged for real or perceived wrongs, and who gets to decide how those wrongs are measured?

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Press play for a live Pride Month panel on trans politics, public judgment, and history.

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