Memories of Chicago
A lot can happen in a short space of time these days, if you’re trans. Last September I flew out from Edinburgh to attend the biennial International Trans Studies conference in Chicago, U.S.A.
By Gina Gwenffrewi, UCUE LGBT+ Rep
It’s an event that may not happen again for a long time, at least in the U.S.A. At the time of writing, news is emerging of how the Trump administration may refuse entry to any trans visitor whose passport shows their identified gender (Reed, 2025) – effectively a cancellation of trans identity for foreign visitors and a prohibition on trans visitors to the country. This follows the nation-wide erasure of references to trans people on federal websites, and the rescinding of rights in several forms, from using the appropriate public restrooms to gender-affirming healthcare and gender-affirming education policy.
Whatever, Donald. With Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) targeting hundreds of thousands of ordinary and valuable federal workers, rather than cutting financial support for already-rich oil corporations and weapons manufacturers, many of those who voted Trump are likely to wake up soon as if from a fever dream, and with a sense of buyer’s remorse, not to mention systems and services that they took for granted and which will increasingly stop working. If there’s one thing we should all have learned from the Covid-19 lockdown, it’s the utter irrelevance of the super-rich (yes, Gal Gadot, I’m thinking of you) and the indispensable value of our workers, from bin collectors to medical staff.
Meanwhile, I think about the trans conference last September. I spent the first few days in Chicago seeing the sights: the Art Institute of Chicago, housing classics like Hopper’s Nighthawks and Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, as well as amazing collections of Chinese and First Nation American artefacts; then on my second day, one of those city boat tours (you can’t escape Trump, mind, a Trump Tower dominates the initial view when the boat sets off).
I even had time to try one of the famous Chicago pizzas while watching American football in a sports bar, though the pizza was too big to enjoy. After that, it was all about the conference, where I briefly met some of the new wave of trans academic superstars like the mercurial Florence Ashley, as well as a hero of mine, the philosophy lecturer and poet Amy Marvin. To my delight, I found Amy to be friendly and generous with her time, which isn’t always the case when I meet famous trans people. At these kinds of events, I think trans celebrities are like any celebrity, often on a spectrum between coldly reserved and egotistically indifferent, at least towards non-famous trans people like me.
I was glad, in fact, to return to Edinburgh, I’d missed the warmth of friendships and comradeship. I’m part of several LGBTQI+ networks at the UoE, including the Staff Pride Network, UCU Edinburgh, and Queer.ed, the latter being an interdisciplinary academic network that I’ve launched with Mariya Levitanus, Christian Ilbury and Kate Davison. It’s the little things that matter: meeting up in the Business School café (less busy than the Main Library café) to have a coffee and discuss our plans but also just to catch up and share stories. Here is the truth about trans people and our broader LGBTQI+ communities: we don’t disappear just because you erase any mention of us, that’s not how reality works. Our ecosystems continue regardless, and once this period of backlash and moral panic fades, we will recover everything we’ve lost, while building for our future, and we’ll do so over drinks and a delicious, manageable-sized pizza.
