CFP – The Trans* Research Association of Ireland’s Second Annual Symposium
Towards an Irish Trans Studies: Crossings & Thresholds; or the Formation of a Field
The Trans* Research Association of Ireland (TRAI)’s 2nd Annual Symposium is the sequel to the groundbreaking first T*RAI symposium hosted at the University College Dublin in 2024. This two-day symposium will bring together international scholars, artists and activists from across, between and against disciplines, all of whom are committed to research on transness and/or Irishness, broadly conceived.
The 2nd Annual Symposium will take place on the 21st and 22nd of November 2025 in Queen’s University Belfast in collaboration with Outburst Arts Festival and the Centre for Gender in Politics at Queen’s. These collaborations demonstrate the resistance of both T*RAI and trans studies to clear or unwavering geographic, political and cultural boundaries and borders and further the inter/cross-disciplinary nature of the symposium by embedding the symposium within the rich, innovative and exceptional series of events programmed by Outburst.
Over the past two decades, trans studies has become fertile ground for interdisciplinary work that explores the diversity of gender, sex, sexuality, embodiment, and identity. We might imagine the ambition of trans intellectual thought as a move to foster a vigorous conversation among scholars, artists, activists, and others that examines how “trans” and “transgender” comes into play as a category, a process, a social assemblage and a rubric for understanding the variability and contingency of gender across time, space, and cultures. The promise of trans studies as a field is increasingly didactic as the field expands, splinters, coalesces and makes alliances with other liberatory schools of thought while also being informed and transformed by creative and grassroots community organising.
Building on the work of the first T*RAI symposium, which was aimed at forging connections between trans theory internationally and Irish iterations thereof, this symposium hones its focus on the specificity of trans knowledge and cultural production in and about Ireland. In response this symposium is asking us to consider how intellectual thought is produced specifically in the shadow of the right. The current socio-political landscape for trans people in Ireland is tenuous enduring influence from extensive geopolitical forces that cannot be extrapolated from its history of colonial rule, most recently evident in the impact of anti-trans legislation and rhetorics in the UK on Northern Ireland.
With this in mind we ask how trans intellectual and cultural workers continue in a climate dedicated to the demise, precarity and diminishing liveability of their subject and lived experience. We will articulate how trans studies in Ireland or an Irish trans studies can provide us with new means of conceptualising Irish history; cross border relations; Irish performance art; Irish literature; Irish sexual politics, among a broad range of possible topics.
This symposium is a crucial step in recognising and making visible the ongoing intellectual, artistic and politically mobilising labour that exists across the Island of Ireland, indispensable to trans knowledge production and the resistance, creativity and resilience inherent in its project. This symposium is a space for critical thought, organising, play, flirtation, collaboration, and solidarity in order to strengthen our shared critical investments and meet difficult questions head on with compassion, generosity, and curiosity. We ask that you join us in the formation of this field.
Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:
- Trans theory abroad and trans theory in Ireland
- Trans studies and disciplinarity
- Trans formations within political organising / broader political coalitions
- The cultural production of trans communities
- Trans performance art in Ireland
- Trans sexualities and sexual practices in Ireland
- Critical analysis of transgender population studies
- Transgender geo/biopolitics
- Translating gender concepts and practices across linguistic communities
- Irish trans history or transing Irish history
- Trans literary ‘canon’, trans poetics, and trans composition
- DIY healthcare practices; cross-border forms of underground community and solidarity
- Transness and neoliberalism
- Colonial legacies of gender
- Cultivating trans solidarity and safety in queer studies/spaces
We invite 300-word abstracts and 100-word presenter bios for both virtual and in-person papers/presentations of 10-15 minutes or workshop proposals of 60 – 90 minutes. Proposals from practitioners, artists, writers, community members as well as traditional academic researchers are very welcome. Please apply here and direct any queries to transreasearchireland@gmail.com. To note the symposium is free to attend.
Submission deadline is 31st August 2025. Notifications regarding acceptances will be sent out by early September.
More information about TRAI can be found here. Further information about the Centre for Gender in Politics Queen’s University Belfast, can be found here and you can find out more about Outburst Queer Arts Festival at outburstarts.com, with the full programme of events available from the start of October. Finally, a huge thank you to Oisin Ralph (@oisinralph) for creating our incredible poster!