Amy Marvin

@amymarvin

fascinating philosopher, lgbtq studies prof, & feminist theorist / writing a book on transphobia & obsession (via Oxford University Press) essays:

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Amy Marvin@amymarvin· 27d

I am back to making brunch tacos

4 breakfast tacos with eggs & potatoes & peppers

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· Jul 9

it's so funny that Janice Raymond, Lisa Vogel, & co. went so ballistic over Sandy Stone ruining Olivia Records by fixing their sound and training more women engineers when what really happened to Olivia Records is that capitalism turned it into a travel agency for lesbian cruise ship adventures

group of women standing at a beach in front of a cruise ship on Olivia travel page - the page is advertising solo cruise ship tickets

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· Jul 6

Buffalo! This Friday at 6pm we’re sending in the clowns: Trans Film / Trans Space presents a trio of drag clown performances followed by a free screening & conversation about the People’s Joker! The joke’s on us at HallWalls

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· Jun 26

We have Castle Bam

House with a pool and a deck and other stuff

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· Jun 26

I have a concept called curiotization that explains this dynamic if anyone wants an essay on the "Transgender Tipping Point" & the historical reduction of trans people into curios for the fascination of non-trans people! philpapers.org/rec/MARTTC-9

Title: Transsexuality, the Curio, and the Transgender Tipping Point

Abstract: This essay develops a concept of curiotization, through which people are reduced to a curio for the fascination of others. I argue that trans people as they have appeared in media, philosophy, and narratives of history are curiotized as forever fascinating, new, titillating, and controversial. In contrast to the narrative of momentous trans progress in the mid-2010s, I point out that frameworks such as the "Transgender Tipping Point" worked to position its "trans moment" as unprecedented and always on the threshold of arrival. To work through a specific example, I point to decades of renewed fascination over trans women being capable of breastfeeding and the long history of trans fascination in popular music. I conclude by emphasizing the obscured world-historical presence of transsexuality as it coincides with the history of pharmaceuticals, hormone technologies, and birth control. In contrast to a "goldfish memory optics" through which trans people become eternally new, fascinating, and debatable, I stress the importance of restoring the complexity of "trans" and its histories back into an understanding of the present.

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· Jun 23

Isobel told me that I look like a big nerd with these new glasses

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· Jun 19

Using my remaining start-up funds to keep Duke University Press in business

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· Jun 17

Concluded my 1.5 weeks of watching obscure trans films

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· May 18

Saw a Reader’s Digest AI issue at the grocery store and I’m glad my grandfather didn’t run into this while he had dementia

Readers Digest issue on Making Friends with AI issue

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· May 10

Peter Singer is an interesting figure in this context because he (1) claims neutrality and (2) is actively curating one of the most transphobic journals in philosophy. One essay from the recent issue was initially an invited Princeton UCHV talk! I commented on this dynamic earlier as well:

Text: THE PROFESSOR OF PARITY AND THE NEW TRANS SCHOLARSHIP. The initial place I will focus on to draw out the differential circulation of trans philosophy is a recent series of essays in which philosopher Martha Nussbaum discusses trans scholarship with the comparably prestigious trans economist Deirdre McCloskey. Because it involves a published mutual correspondence rather than a distanced pseudo-engagement such as Peter Singer’s curated lectures and journal of controversial ideas (i.e., transgender persons), Nussbaum’s engagement stands out as an unparalleled meditation on the state of trans philosophy as a field by one of philosophy’s living legends. It is also, as I will point out, a site of deep contradiction.

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· May 10

New journal of controversial ideas issue is probably the most transphobic (technical philosophical term) one they've published so far. I would probably have to raise the percentage that I initially came up with in my "Circulation of Trans Philosophy" essay. philarchive.org/archive/MART...

Text: "Here, I take up the phrasing of “the trans question” both to connect this circulation with the insights of Viviane Namaste on research ethics<38> and to highlight the increasing circulation of a phrase<39> that frames a group of people as a problem to be solved, subjugated, or eliminated. The second circulation of trans philosophy is the continued entrenchment of a space where non-trans philosophers can have their questions, concerns, and curiosity centered and elevated over trans people, who are primarily a questionable object of debate and should not interfere with this debate due to inherent bias. Trans people may be allowed to engage but only on the terms set by non-trans people, well-intentioned or otherwise. This circulation of trans philosophy has largely been handed off to the self-identified gender critical philosophers and other professionals jumping on deck to correct the leakage of trans into mainstream philosophy. In this context, we can consider the rise of The Journal of Controversial Ideas, which has benefited from the magnification of the trans debacle and typically devotes several essays to its version of trans philosophy in every issue. Excluding editorials, about 34% of the journal’s essays discuss the topic as of this writing. Where once there was a history of debate between trans and trans exclusionary scholars that led to the development of trans studies as a field and a reconciliation with feminist..."

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· Apr 29

Another thing I like about this essay is its connections it with other work. We get transphobic curiosity and fascination, the relationship between transmisogyny and space, complex practices of trans care, and the concept of atmospheres which Isobel and I develop more in "Atmospheres of Conversion!"

Text: Non-practicing feminist theorists of humor have much to learn from these insights. For Malatino, weathering is a practice of surviving and perhaps changing a place even while its atmosphere remains unfit to breathe. We do the work of circulation as best as we can. Atmosphere can be collectively weathered, but weathering takes a toll. For Arline
Geronimus (2023), weathering refers to the damage done to a body and eventual death from the stress of living under oppression (10-11). I do not only practice comedy to develop an artistic skill and contest comedic spaces. I practice comedy to write about comedy within an atmosphere of academic philosophy where I am working myself to death in order to live. The comedy spaces are worse, but I can step out of them more easily. I will never escape cissexual laughter.

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· Apr 29

I'm also interested in what transphobia does to the atmosphere of an art space, and the ways that performances of stand-up bring up trans people only to push us away through laughter. This includes an attempt by someone to do transphobic crowd work at @echosequence.space that totally failed.

Text: "After our sets another performer attempts crowd work. He asks if we are new. We are new. He moves to Isobel : “I notice you said you go by Isobel. Is that your transition name? Are you a female transitioning to a man? I’m just trying to understand. Oh, no? What are you? So you used to be a man? I’m confused, can you tell everyone how this works?” In a position as one of the funniest new comics on the scene, she refuses to let him pose us as offended mannequins for his set. This forces him to accept his confusion as an unresolved weakness in front of everyone else. Later, stand-up comedians unfamiliar with us will reference the disapproval of “the lesbians” sitting in the back of the bar, raising the eyebrows of those who know us (see also Kulick 2010). The fly unwittingly seeks attention from the spiders."

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· Apr 29

Usually when you start doing stand-up you do 5 minutes sets at open mics. I discuss learning this practice and trying to do some comedy that's about trans stuff and some that isn't, including a set that got overly complicated to memorize!

Text: "At the next open mic a comedian goes off script to joke about a hypothetical trans person pooping loudly in a bathroom. We discuss if attending mics is worthwhile. I attempt designing a set of jokes that play with the air of transphobia. The premise: While at a bar I order a Bud Light, and the person next to me laments that Bud Light has become
“political.” I venture out to discover what “political” and “cancel culture” means, comically colliding both vague notions against each other. Calling attention to mass media panic and boycotts after trans woman influencer Dylan Mulvaney drank a single Bud Light on Tik Tok in 2023, I come to learn that not only have I been the “political” one all along, but also that I am a trans woman holding a Bud Light in public where anyone could alert the media. I flee the bar."

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· Apr 28

Here's the concluding paragraph to pique your interest!

Text: The spider spins a web, the driver runs the windshield wipers, and the web shreds into tattered fragments. Laughter alone will never save our world, even if practiced feministly. In addition to Samer’s insight on care, it is often through being strange and estranged that trans people are capable of becoming both socially dead and a force for lively innovation in a comedy scene. The social affects that constitute the transphobic atmosphere are unstable, which provides us with an unprecedented range of material to rework as we weather these spaces through our presence. Trans people are affectively hyperdetermined through curiosity, surprise, fear, fascination, mirth, disgust, and hypersexualization, making it all the more disruptive when we have unexpectedly entered a room as artists. Through humor funny trans people can play with the charged but shiftable atmosphere of living in the world as trans at this very moment: disposable, hypervisible, un/fuckable, excessive, distorted, chokeable, yet breathtakingly creative.

Amy Marvin@amymarvin· Apr 28

New essay preprint!: "Weathering the Comic Storm: On Being Trans and Funny" - I reflect on my attempt to practice stand-up comedy, the ways that transphobia shapes local stand-up comedy scenes, and what weathering and trans care look like in this context! philpapers.org/rec/MARWTC-9