The Presidential theme of “joy and sorrow” seems particularly appropriate to trans survival in a moment where the United States is trying to enshrine discrimination and blatant transphobia. When the world is a source of sorrow, how can trans people and our allies use performances of trans joy to illustrate and extend this discourse? This panel is an extension of a group of scholars focused on the transfeminist cause, who have meeting to discuss these topics within the realm of theatre and performance for six years now. The panel will consist of four 10-13-minute-long papers and then a portion for discussion, and its aim is to bring together trans studies, feminist studies, and theatre and performance studies to foreground the intersections between these crucial methodologies and histories. But transness is not a metaphor here: focusing on the lived experiences of trans people’s joys enables us to acknowledge trans trauma and sorrow without perpetuating that as the dominant narrative of trans lives.

Presider Bess Rowen will introduce the panelists and say a few short words about the panel's theme and transfeminism in under five minutes. She will also prepare questions in the event that there are no questions from the floor.

Azucena Trincada Murugarren’s paper “From Gender Dysphoria to Gender Euphoria: Approaches to Trans Joy in HBO Max’s TV Show Veneno,” uses the concept of “gender euphoria” to examine the trans narrative of Spain’s most famous trans woman, Cristina Ortiz Rodríguez, aka “La Veneno.” Murugarren engages with scholars of gender euphoria such as Beishcel, Dale, Evan, Keuroghlian, and Marinucci to discuss the way Veneno centers positive self-worth and joy in a discourse of trans identity in a discourse often inundated with tropes of suffering and trauma. While the show still portrays violence and sorrows, it focuses more on trans solidarity and trans friendship. Murugarren hopes that this work will foster new frameworks that can serve not only in the field of trans studies, but also promote dignity and accountability in LGBTQ+ social justice.

Jack Isaac Pryor’s paper “Brechtian Theory/Transfeminist Theory: Performing Gestic Joy (and Sorrow) in Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play,” reads this exciting play in the context of Bertolt Brecht and Elin Diamonds theories of gesture and the gestic. Pryor argues that the power of Jung’s play in performance resides in its Brechtian refusal to fully realize––dramaturgically, scenographically, choreographically, and otherwise––the world of the play. In this sense, the story of a transnational South Korean adoptee, Jeenu (played by a puppet), who ends up in a custody battle when a straight white couple (re-)sell him online to a mix-race queer/trans couple, is actually a greater meditation on theatre as a storytelling medium. The joy of the production comes from the theatricalization, which is juxtaposed by the sorrow of the bleak dramaturgy. In this way, Pryor introduces the concept of “gestic transfeminist criticism” as an innovative model for accessing trans joy in a culture of trans harm.

Berkem Yanikcan’s paper, “Challenging Sorrow: Trans* Performances and Joyful Transfeminism in Contemporary Turkish Theatre,” is a focus on the rising focus of plays and performances about trans women in Turkey’s alternative theatre scene throughout the last decade. The majority of these stories focus on trans women’s suffering, end in a trans woman’s death, and feature cisgender actors in these roles. But trans performances like Esmeray Özadikti’s Cadının Bohçası [The Witch’s Bundle] and Seyhan Arman’s Küründen Kabare [Cabaret of Sham] challenge the dominance of trans sadness on Turkish stage by employing a joyful transfeminist approach to trans experience in Turkey. As Yanikcan contextualizes the political significance of transfeminist joy in contemporary Turkish theatre, he also demonstrates how sadness in plays about trans women facilitates compassion in cis audiences and critics, rendering the plays written by cisgender people more palatable for mainstream audiences; hence serving cisnormativity while ostensibly challenging it.

Kara Raphaeli’s paper, “To Promulgate Trans Joy: Exploring the Space for Transness within the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” focuses on the queer and trans nuns who take vows to “promulgate universal joy and expatiate stigmatic guilt.” The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence devote their lives to community outreach, education, and activism, and are often found organizing LGBTQ+ community events while wearing gowns and white clown makeup. Despite having been members of the order for over thirty years, trans Sisters are an understudied population. Raphaeli uses ethnographic and performance studies frameworks, building on the work of religious studies scholar Melissa M. Wilcox, to explore the possibilities and limitations of trans expression within an order focused on trans joy.