Dreamers and Schemers: On Trans* and Queer Worldbuilding

How do we make the worlds we want to inhabit? How can we imagine new worlds for expansive trans and queer ways of being? How do we build these worlds? This panel seeks presentations that take up questions of trans* and queer worldbuilding. We are interested in practices that range from visionary and speculative to practical and tactical. We seek presentations that celebrate successes, as well as those that reckon with failures and disappointment. Possible topics include: building alternative networks, modes of communication, and spaces of solidarity; tactical alliances; community building among trans* artists; strategies for subverting oppressive rules and norms; strategies for thriving in spite of it all; utopian imagining. We invite presentations from artists, scholars, curators, and critics–dreamers and schemers of all stripes. We welcome scholarly and critical reflections on past and current projects, as well as new and experimental artistic works.