Paisley Currah
Professor
Political Science
Location: 3311 James Hall
Phone: 718.951.5000 x1755
Fax: 718.951.4833
Email:
Paisley Currah is a Professor of Political Science and Women's & Gender Studies at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Currah has written widely on transgender issues, including on topics such as discrimination and sex reclassification, and the transgender rights movement. He is the author and editor of over 30 articles and books and co-founder of the leading journal in transgender studies, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Currah's newest book is Sex Is Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity. You can find out more about his work, read articles and watch interviews at paisleycurrah.com. read articles and watch interviews
Education:
Ph.D., Cornell University - 1994 (Government)
M.A., Cornell University - 1992 (Government)
B.A. (honors), Queen's University (Kingston, Canada) - 1987 (Political Studies)
Areas of Expertise:
In his most recent book Currah looks at how states classify sex, focusing on the contradictions in definitions of sex (as in M and F) from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and agency to agency. His teaching interests include sexuality and gender studies, LGBT studies, queer legal theory, law and public policy, and political theory. Mastodon
Books and Publications
"Incarceration, Identity Politics, and the Trans-Cis Divide." In The Transgender Studies Reader Remix, edited by Dylan McCarthy Blackston and Susan Stryker, 352-365. New York: Routledge. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2023
Sex Is as Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity (New York: NYU Press, 2022). (Use Currah30 for 30% discount on NYU site.) (Books and Publications: Book (Authored)) 2022
"What Sex Does." New York Review of Books, May 27. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2022
"To Challenge Trans Injustices, We Must First Understand Why They Exist." Rewire News Group, May 31. (Books and Publications: Other) 2022
Paisley Currah, "To set transgender policy, look to the evidence," Nature, September 27, 2022. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2022
Currah, Paisley. "The Work that Sex Does." In The Intimate State. Edited by Margot Canaday, Nancy F. Cott, and Robert O. Self (University of Chicago Press, 2021) (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2021
Currah, Paisley. "How a Conservative Legal Perspective Just Saved LGBT Rights." The Boston Review, June 19, 2020. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2020
"Social Justice for Gender and Sexual Minorities: A Discussion with Paisley Currah and Aeyal Gross." Critical Analysis of Law, Vol 6 No 1 (2019): Queer Legal Studies. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2019
"Transgender Rights Without a Theory of Gender," 52 Tulsa L. Rev. 441 (2017). (Books and Publications: Book Review) 2017
Aultman, B Lee and Paisley Currah. "Politics Outside the Law: Transgender Lives and the Challenge of Legibility." In GLBTQ Politics, edited by Marla Brettschneider, Christine Keating, and Susan Burgess. New York: New York University Press (2017). (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2017
Currah, Paisley and Susan Stryker. "Making Transgender Count." TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 2.1. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2015
Moore, Lisa Jean and Paisley Currah. "Legally Sexed: Birth Certificates and Transgender Citizens." Feminist Surveillance Studies. Eds. Rachel Dubrofsky and Shoshana Magnet. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2015
"Homonationalism, State Rationalities, and Sex Contradictions." Theory & Event 16.1, March. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2013
"The State." TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1.1/2, May. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2013
"Introduction, Symposium on the State of LGBT/Sexuality Studies in Political Science." PS: Political Science & Politics 44.1: 13-16. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2011
Currah, Paisley and Monica Casper. Corpus: An Interdisciplinary Reader on Bodies and Knowledge. An edited collection that explores bodies and embodiment through multiple interdisciplinary lenses, including studies of aging, feminist technoscience, food, fat studies, race and genetics, new media, death, sexuality, surveillance and trauma. Showcasing original work by a range of up-and-coming and senior scholars. Palgrave. (Books and Publications: Book (Edited)) 2011
Currah, Paisley and Monica J. Casper. "Bringing Forth the Body: The Disciplines and Body Studies." Corpus: An Interdisciplinary Reader on Bodies and Knowledge. Eds. Monica J. Casper and Paisley Currah. Palgrave. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2011
Currah, Paisley and Tara Mulqueen. "Securitizing Gender: Identity, Biometrics, and Gender Non-conforming Bodies." Social Research 78.2, Summer: 557-82. (Books and Publications: Article (Peer-reviewed)) 2011
"Expecting Bodies: The Pregnant Man." Reprinted in Gendered Bodies: Feminist Perspectives. Eds. Judith Lorber and Lisa Jean Moore. New York: Oxford University Press. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2010
"The Transgender Rights Imaginary." Feminist and Queer Legal Theory: Intimate Encounters, Uncomfortable Conversations. Eds. Martha Albertson Fineman, Jack E. Jackson and Adam P. Romero. Ashgate Press. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2009
Currah, Paisley, Jamison Green and Susan Stryker. "The State of Transgender Rights in the United States of America," a working paper written for the Global Dialog on Sexual Health and Well Being, organized by the four regional National Sexuality Resource Centers and funded by Ford. Published by the National Sexuality Resource Center in March and presented in New York on April 17. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2009
"Stepping Back, Looking Outward: Situating Transgender Activism and Transgender Studies. Kris Hayashi, Matt Richardson, and Susan Stryker Frame the Movement." (A roundtable discussion moderated by Paisley Currah.) Sexuality Research and Social Policy 5.1, March: 93-105. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2008
Currah, Paisley, Gael Gunden Guevara and Richard M. Juang. "Transgender Justice: Selected Proceedings of the Transgender Politics, Social Change, and Justice Conference," held at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies and published with the support of the Gill Foundation and the Open Society Institute. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2007
"Gender Pluralisms Under the Transgender Umbrella." Transgender Rights. Eds. Paisley Currah, Richard M. Juang and Shannon Price Minter. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. 3-31. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2006
Currah, Paisley, Richard M. Juang and Shannon Minter. "Introduction." Transgender Rights. Eds. Paisley Currah, Richard M. Juang and Shannon Price Minter. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. xiii-xiv. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2006
Currah, Paisley, and Shannon Minter. "Unprincipled Exclusions: The Struggle for Legislative and Judicial Protections for Transgendered People." Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy and Identity. Eds. Elizabeth Bernstein and Laurie Schnaffer. New York: Routledge. 35-49. Revised and expanded from: Currah, Paisley and Shannon Minter, "Unprincipled Exclusions: The Struggle for Legislative and Judicial Protections for Transgendered People." College of William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law 7.1, Fall 2000: 37-66. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2004
"The Transgender Rights Imaginary." Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law 4: 705-20. (Books and Publications: Article (Other)) 2003
Solomon, Alisa, and Paisley Currah. Introduction. Queer Ideas: The David R. Kessler Lectures in Lesbian and Gay Studies. New York: Feminist Press. 5-18. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2003
"Queer Theory, Lesbian and Gay Rights, and Transsexual Marriages." Identity/Space/Power. Ed. Mark Blasius. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 178-99. (Books and Publications: Book Chapter) 2001
Awards, Honors and Fellowships
Transgender Rights, edited collection, announced as a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. (Awards and Honors) 2007
Arcus Foundation, for the LGBTQ History Project. As executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY Graduate Center. $100,000. (Grants and Fellowships) 2007
Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies from the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies awarded to Transgender Rights. Eds. Paisley Currah, Richard M. Juang and Shannon Price Minter. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Awards and Honors) 2006
Open Society Institute ($15,000) and Gill Foundation ($15,000), for a conference and book,
"Trans Justice, Social Change, and Politics." Principal investigator as leader of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY. (Grants and Fellowships) 2004
Wayne F. Placek Award, American Psychological Foundation. One of two scholars chosen nationally for award to support two years of research investigating federal and state judicial opinions and briefing materials involving transgender plaintiffs and the construction of gender in the law. $30,000. (Grants and Fellowships) 2002
Fellow, Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, Brooklyn College, 1999-2000. (Grants and Fellowships) 2000
Research Activities
Currah, Paisley and Susan Stryker. Editors of "Making Transgender Count," a special issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 2.1, February. 2015
Currah, Paisley and Susan Stryker. Editors of "Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a Twenty-First-Century Transgender Studies." TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 2.1, May. 2014
Member, advisory board, Ford Foundation-funded inter-university project, "Beyond Bullying: Shifting the Discourse of LGBTQ Sexuality and Youth in Schools." 2013
Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums
"Female, Non-Binary, or Male: Who Gets to Decide?" Las Positas College, California, May 6. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2022
"Trans Studies After Identity Politics," Keynote address, International Colloquium on Transgender Studies/Transgender Epistemologies, Laboratoire des études de genre et de sexualité (LEGS), UMR 8238, Université Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis, October 17-19. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2022
"What is Sexual Justice?" Brudner roundtable with Paisley Currah, Che Gossett, Tey Meadow, and Shatema Threadcraft, Yale University, April 14. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2022
Sex Is as Sex Does: Author-meets-critics roundtable, American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, Quebec, with Angela D. Ledford, Julie L. Novkov, em padilla, Dara Z. Strolovitch, Juliet A. Williams, Joanna W. Wuest, September 16, 2022 (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2022
"Sex Discrimination and the End of the Transgender Exception," Gender and Sexuality Studies Speaker Series, Temple University, March 9, 2021. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2021
"What Would a Transgender Political Science Look Like?", keynote address for the conference, "Intersectionality and Transgender Studies: From Margin to Center," Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science at the Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany, October 2021. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2021
"Can we stop talking about transphobia already?", Queer Politics Webinar, Princeton University, August 20, 2020. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2020
Discussant: "Trans Identities between State Coercion and Self Assertion: New Histories of 20th-Century Germany, Israel, and Britain," American Historical Association Annual Meeting, January, 2020. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2020
"Beyond Virtue and Vice: Rethinking human rights and the criminal law," Roundtable at the Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association, Washington, DC, June 2019 (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2019
"Global Legacies of Stonewall-Roundtable Discussion," New York University, April 2019. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2019
"Social Justice for Gender and Sexual Minorities," with Joe Fischel and Aeyal Gross, Provocations in Queer Legal Studies Conference, Yale University, September 2019 (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2019
"The Politics and Rights of Trans & Gender-Nonconforming People," Columbia Law School, November 2019. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2019
"Trans Misogyny," Gender Institute, University of Buffalo, November 2019. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2019
"Transfeminism," a lecture in the annual Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Fall Symposium, Wesleyan University, October 2019. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2019
"Why do Bathrooms Matter? Sex Classification, Trans Politics, and the New Culture Wars," keynote address, 21st Annual Conference on Race, Class, Gender, and Ethnicity Law School, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, February 2017.
(Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2017
"Freeze Frames: The Carceral State, Trans Prisoners, and Neoliberal Penality,"
Connecticut College, February 29, 2016
(Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2016
"Freeze Frames: The Carceral State, Trans Prisoners, and Neoliberal Penality,"
Purdue University, February 9, 2016.
(Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2016
"The Left Neoliberalism of Transgender Politics," Duke University, September 29.
(Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2016
"Transgender as Exception: From Bathrooms to Airports?" New School University, April 5, 2016. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2016
"Transgender Beside Itself: Paradigms, Paradoxes, and Other Exemplary Subjects," University of Rhode Island, Transforming Scholarship Keynote Address, April 9, 2016. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2016
"Are Transgender Politics Feminist," Center for the Study of Women and Society, Graduate Center, November 10, 2015. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2015
"Freeze Frames: The Carceral State, Trans Prisoners, and Neoliberal Penality," Political Theory Colloquium, Graduate Center, CUNY, March 26, 2015. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2015
"Transgender Experience and its Implications for Theory," New School for Social Research, March 31, 2015. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2015
"Included in What and as What? Contradictions in Sex Classification and the Idea of the Unitary State"? Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Seattle, Washington, April 17-19, 2014. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2014
"Freezing Gender: Dead Space, Time, and Incarcerated Trans Bodies," National Women?s Studies Association Annual Meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico, November 14, 2014. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2014
"Trans-disciplinary Transgender Studies," Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Toronto, Canada, May 23, 2014. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2014
"Homonationalism, Federalism, and Gender Pluralism." University of Utah. Nov. 30. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2012
Currah, Paisley and Tara Mulqueen. "Securitizing Gender." The Body and the State: 22nd Social Research Conference at the New School. New York, February. On youtube about 57:03 minutes into the clip. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2011
"Naturalizations: Sophie, the Pregnant Man, and Biopolitical Futures" keynote address. Shifting Agendas, School of Social Sciences. University of Manchester, England. Feb. 19. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2010
"Reproducing Citizenship: Blood, Soil, and the Pregnant Man." All in the Family: An Interdisciplinary Workshop on Kinship and Community. The Center for Humanities, CUNY Graduate Center. New York, March 24-25. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2010
"Sex and State Effects--or, Why Contradictions in Legal Sex Classification Are Not Really Contradictions." LGBTQ Lecture Series. Princeton University. Princeton, N.J., April 6. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2010
"Sex Is as Sex Does." Amherst College. Amherst, Mass., Dec. 1. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2010
"Bodies out of Time, Genders out of Place." TransRhetorics Conference. Cornell University. Ithaca, N.Y., March 6-8. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2009
"Body Politics: New Directions in Transgender Studies." Bowdoin College. Brunswick, Maine, Feb. 28. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2008
"Gendering Rights." Invited panelist, TransLaw Conference, Harvard Lambda Legal Law Association. Harvard Law School, Feb. 29-March 1. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2008
"The Time of Gender, the Place of Sex: Fixing Transgender Bodies." Feminist Studies Research Group, CUNY Graduate Center. New York, Oct. 31. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2008
"Fixing Bodies: Tracking Transgender Identities in the Post 9/11 U.S." Political Theory Colloquium. CUNY Graduate Center. New York, March 30. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007
"Fixing the Bureaucratic Gaze on Transgender Bodies: An Overview of Current Legal and Policy Issues." Yale University. New Haven, Conn., Feb. 28. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007
"Not the United States of Gender: Framing Transgender Activism in Societies of Control." Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers University, 2007-08 Distinguished Lecture Series. Nov. 8. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007
"The State of Queer Studies." University of Massachusetts, Amherst, March 1. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007
Currah, Paisley and Lisa Moore. "Disintegrated Identification and Surveillance: The Trans Bodies as Harbingers," Workshop on Surveillance and Inequality, funded by the National Science Foundation. Arizona State University. March 16-18. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2007
"Teaching Transgender Subjects, Theories and Lives." Montclair State University. Montclair, N.J., February. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2006
"The Closet and Gay Academia." Ithaca College. Ithaca, N.Y., February. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2006
"The Transgender Rights Imaginary." Smith College. Northampton, Mass., April. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2006
"Transgender Issues and the Law." University of Delaware, March. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2006
"Same-Sex Marriage and Beyond." Inaugural Mary C. Dunlap Memorial Lecture, Boalt School of Law. Berkeley, Calif., Feb. 24. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2005
Professional Leadership
Chair, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Minor Working Group. Click here for more information on the LGBTQ minor at Brooklyn College . 2007-present. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2017
Co-Chair, Normative Political Theory Division for the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 2016-17 (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2017
Executive Committee, PhD Program in Political Science, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 2015-2018. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2017
Graduate Deputy Chair, MA concentrations in political science, urban administration and policy, 2015-present. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2017
Subfield Chair, Political Theory, PhD Program in Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY, 2016-2017. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2017
Member, Advisory Committee, Human Rights Watch Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program, 2006-12. (Professional Leadership: Public Service) 2012
Committee on the Status of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and the Transgendered (LGBT) in the Profession, standing committee of the American Political Science Association. 2008-11. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2011
Founder and board member, Transgender Law and Policy Institute, July 2000-present. (Professional Leadership: Public Service) 2011
President, Sexuality & Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, 2010-11. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2011
Program chairperson, Sexuality and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. 2009-10. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2010
Executive Committee, Sexuality and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. 2008-09. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2009
External program evaluator, Undergraduate Program in Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto. (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2008
Executive director, Center for Lesbian & Gay Studies, CUNY Graduate Center, 2003-07. (Professional Leadership: Organizational Leadership Position) 2007
External Advisory Committee to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for the Amendment of Birth Certificates for Transgender Persons, January 2005-December 2006. (Professional Leadership: Public Service) 2006
Member, Steering Committee, University Consortium on Sexuality Research and Training, March 2006-present. (A project of the Ford Foundation to support sexuality research training in the United States) (Professional Leadership: Committee Service) 2006
Citizens Advisory Committee Transgender Subcommittee, New York City Human Resources Administration; co-author, "Recommended Best Practices for Working With and Serving Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Employees and Clients," November 2004-December 2005. (Professional Leadership: Public Service) 2005
Community Activities
Board of directors, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center, New York, 2008-10. 2010
Featured interviewee for "Revising Gender," documentary for "In the Life." Aired in April on more than 240 stations. 2009
Other Professional Activities
International editorial board, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 2008-2020 2020
"The Aimee Stephens Case: On the problem with describing a trans woman as an "insufficiently masculine" biological male." (Featured on Scotus blog.) October 15, 2019. 2019
Currah, Paisley, general co-editor, Transgender Studies Quarterly, Duke University Press, 2011-2019. 2019
Member of the Advisory Board, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Social Science and Public Policy Research Center at Roosevelt House, Hunter College, 2015-2019 2019
Advisory board, Sexuality and Law, Social Science Research Network, 2008-2016. 2016
Member, editorial advisory board, Biopolitics: Medicine, Technoscience, and Health in the Twenty-First Century, a series from New York University Press, 2007-2015. 2016
Member, advisory board, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, 2010-2014. 2014
Senior tutor, International LGBT Summer Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, August. 2010
Member, advisory board, International Resource Network, a global community of teachers and researchers sharing knowledge about sexuality. 2007-09. 2009
Peer review for Ford Foundation Latina/o Sexualities Research Agenda Project and Ford Foundation Black Sexuality Project. 2008
