Going Stealth - Moé for Solarpunk Books

paperback, 208 pages

Published Jan. 18, 2019 by Duke University Press.

ISBN:: 978-1-4780-0157-7

(1 review)

In Going Stealth Toby Beauchamp demonstrates how the enforcement of gender conformity is linked to state surveillance practices that identify threats based on racial, gender, national, and ableist categories of difference. Positioning surveillance as central to our understanding of transgender politics, Beauchamp examines a range of issues, from bathroom bills and TSA screening practices to Chelsea Manning's trial, to show how security practices extend into the everyday aspects of our gendered lives. He brings the fields of disability, science and technology, and surveillance studies into conversation with transgender studies to show how the scrutinizing of gender nonconformity is motivated less by explicit transgender identities than by the perceived threat that gender nonconformity poses to the U.S. racial and security state. Beauchamp uses instances of gender surveillance to demonstrate how disciplinary power attempts to produce conformist citizens and regulate difference through discourses of security. At the same time, he contends that …

In Going Stealth Toby Beauchamp demonstrates how the enforcement of gender conformity is linked to state surveillance practices that identify threats based on racial, gender, national, and ableist categories of difference. Positioning surveillance as central to our understanding of transgender politics, Beauchamp examines a range of issues, from bathroom bills and TSA screening practices to Chelsea Manning's trial, to show how security practices extend into the everyday aspects of our gendered lives. He brings the fields of disability, science and technology, and surveillance studies into conversation with transgender studies to show how the scrutinizing of gender nonconformity is motivated less by explicit transgender identities than by the perceived threat that gender nonconformity poses to the U.S. racial and security state. Beauchamp uses instances of gender surveillance to demonstrate how disciplinary power attempts to produce conformist citizens and regulate difference through discourses of security. At the same time, he contends that greater visibility and recognition for gender nonconformity, while sometimes beneficial, might actually enable the surveillance state to more effectively track, measure, and control trans bodies and identities.

2 editions

QTKO reviewed Going Stealth by Toby Beauchamp

A must-read on the crossroads between US government surveillance and trans identity

5 stars

This book is a fantastic read. It's a little dense, and the chapter on mid-2010s transphobic bathroom bills is definitely padded for page length, but otherwise it's excellent.

Beauchamp's basic idea is that our medical-legal framework pushes trans folks to "fully transition" - which is to say, to eventually read as cisgender and erase any signs of transness. At the same time, it requires a paper trail of documents that prevent a trans person from fully assimilating in the eyes of the law; there has to always be some record of a trans person's previous life. It's a contradiction that shows the true nature of trans-directed policy: to categorize people between the compliant model citizen and the suspicious other. And as you can imagine, this creates complex issues when transness is cast along the lines of race, class, and disability.

Did you know that photo ID laws started with the …

This book is a fantastic read. It's a little dense, and the chapter on mid-2010s transphobic bathroom bills is definitely padded for page length, but otherwise it's excellent.

Beauchamp's basic idea is that our medical-legal framework pushes trans folks to "fully transition" - which is to say, to eventually read as cisgender and erase any signs of transness. At the same time, it requires a paper trail of documents that prevent a trans person from fully assimilating in the eyes of the law; there has to always be some record of a trans person's previous life. It's a contradiction that shows the true nature of trans-directed policy: to categorize people between the compliant model citizen and the suspicious other. And as you can imagine, this creates complex issues when transness is cast along the lines of race, class, and disability.

Did you know that photo ID laws started with the Chinese Exclusion Act and were specifically designed to screen based on Western gender norms? Did you know that TSA millmeter-wavelength scanners got their start in prisons? If you want to understand the root of these things - or if you want to understand the full context in the modern day - read this book.