The challenges we face as TGE scholars that promote TGE equity and justice are situated in the research, the systems in which we’re situated, and the broader societal climate. For example, we regularly face challenges to recognizing our work as valid, navigating systems that reinforce gender binaries, lack of support for TGE scholars with intersecting forms of marginalization (e.g. transfeminine and people of the global majority), and lack of mentorship by established/tenured TGE scholars. Additionally, given the highly visible and public nature of anti-trans rhetoric and pro-trans advocacy and activism, we are faced with significant invisible labor in the form of media requests, invitations to engage in consultation to promote TGE equity beyond our research and other capacities, and mentoring students and early career scholars while we are still early in our own careers. We are doing this work while navigating being on the job market, addressing systemic injustices at our current (or future) places of employment, and threats to tenure in states that do not support TGE communities.
This roundtable contends with these and additional challenges faced by TGE social work scholars during this hostile sociopolitical climate, with a primary focus on the integration of research, teaching, advocacy, and organizing to promote justice and equity for TGE communities. Panelists include early career and tenured professors who work to promote trans justice and equity as activist scholars in their institutions, communities, states, and nation. In this roundtable, we will discuss the complexities of engaging in research that intersects with our lived experiences during a hostile political landscape, strategies for integrating research and advocacy that aligns with our professional mandate to work toward social change, and identify moments of synergy and joy in this work. We will discuss how individuals living at the intersections of a TGE positionality and additional marginalized positionalities (transfeminine individuals, racialized people, disabled individuals, and having lower socio-economic status) continue to experience barriers to accessing social work education, which breaks the academic pipeline that could create positional diversity among TGE faculty in social work programs.