Recently appointed the inaugural research chair in transgender studies at the University of Victoria, Prof. Aaron Devor, has been studying and teaching about transgender topics for more than 30 years. He is the author of Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989), FTM: Female-To-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997, 2016), and The Transgender Archives: Foundations for the Future (2014). He is also founder and academic director of the world’s largest transgender archives at the University of Victoria.
An American Jewish billionaire philanthropist in Chicago has pledged $1 million (US) to establish Devor’s new position, which is believed to be the first chair of transgender studies at a major university. The foundation has also pledged to donate up to $1 million more to match gifts from other sources. Jennifer Pritzker, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who is believed to be the only transgender billionaire in the world, made the gift through her Tawani Foundation to the University of Victoria.
What is your background?
I was born in the Bronx but have lived in Canada since 1969. I became a faculty member at UVic in 1989, and UVic was my first tenure-track job.
When did you begin getting involved in transgender studies, and what was the impetus for you to do so?
I have always been interested in gender variance and people who challenge conventional gender norms and stereotypes. I started my master’s thesis in the early 1980s studying women who identified as women, but who strangers often mistakenly thought were men. That turned into my first book Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality. At that time, there was no such thing as transgender studies, and only a handful of people even used the word transgender. That book is seen by many as one of the classics of transgender studies.
Why is it important that UVic have a chair in transgender studies?
One in 200 people is transgender or gender non-conforming. While in the past year or so we have seen unprecedented positive attention to trans people in the popular media, social change is uneven, and despite glamorous celebrity coming-out stories, far too many trans and gender non-conforming people still live in poverty and fear.
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Good research forms a solid foundation for better laws and policies, and for changing hearts and minds. The chair in transgender studies will assist in both the creation and transfer of reliable knowledge about and for trans and gender nonconforming people. The chair will also act as a resource locally and internationally for those needing information for their own research, media reports, policy development, or for use in classrooms.
What should the Jewish community know about the relevance of transgender studies?
The Jewish community should be aware that there are many trans and gender-nonconforming Jews – one in 200. Reform Judaism just passed new policy welcoming trans people, and Conservative Judaism’s law committee will be considering updating their policies shortly. I advised on the development of the current policy, which was adopted in 2003.
Why did the Tawani Foundation donate this money to UVic specifically?
In her remarks at the announcement of the chair, Jennifer Pritzker said that the issue of human gender identity is something all humans deal with every day of their lives and that there should be at least one institution of higher learning that addresses this on a high level of scholastic and scientific research.
She noted that UVic has made itself a leader on this topic, with first-class archives that are the largest and most comprehensive in the world, as well as leading scholars in the field. She said her support is an investment in success, and it’s her personal goal that this chair in transgender studies will stimulate outstanding work at other institutions and create a global network for the study of this topic.
What will be the first things you do as new chair?
My main research focus over the past few years has been on building the Transgender Archives and historical research on trans activism. That work will continue, but I will now begin to establish further collaborations with researchers in other disciplines. I plan to build local, national and international linkages with others working in transgender studies, foster research and scholarship in transgender studies, host visiting academic and community scholars, mentor students and junior colleagues, do community outreach and knowledge mobilization, teach in the area of transgender studies and do development work in support of the chair in transgender studies at UVic.
How long will $1 million sustain this chair?
The university has approved the chair for a standard five-year term. We will review and consider a renewal after that time.
Where else is transgender studies being studied?
Transgender topics are being studied at most universities around the world. For example, I had an email this week from a junior researcher working on a transgender topic at a university in Islamabad. The University of Arizona is working on developing a graduate certificate program in transgender studies and hopes to expand it into a degree program in the coming years.
Regarding the Transgender Archives at UVic, how was all this material collected? What is its significance?
The materials were donated by individuals who had collected them because they understood their historical significance. They are the raw materials from which history is written.
In my book The Transgender Archives: Foundations for the Future, which is downloadable as a free PDF file, I noted that as the largest collection of transgender archival materials in the world, the archives are a unique and invaluably rich resource from which to learn about the complexity of human gender variation. Our collections bear witness to the courage, vision, and perseverance of our elders and forebears. They had the wisdom to see that there was much important work to be done to make the world a more just place for all. Each in their own ways took on a piece to the job of making the world safer and more hospitable for people who do not easily fit within prevailing simplistic binary and hierarchical systems and structures of gender. They all took risks in doing this. Some suffered significantly for their boldness. All contributed to advancing gender freedoms. We owe them more than we can know.
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The archives stand as a testament to those brave souls who risked so much to forge a pathway for today’s advances. By keeping their names alive, and by preserving the records of the work they have done, we can repay some of our debt to our pioneers. Thus, those who have had the foresight to do the work of collecting and preserving, also do the work of advancing social justice. All people need to know their history, and this is even more so for people who have been so abject that through much of our history, our very survival has depended on our ability to keep our gender variance hidden.
We welcome community members, scholars and independent researchers, activists and allies to come to the archives to explore our diverse collections and through them to learn about who we are, and how we got to where we are today. The archives are open to the public, free of charge. They safeguard a broad spectrum of trans heritage, so that the work our pioneers have done will not be forgotten.
This interview has been edited and condensed for style and clarity.