Paisley Currah

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 current research, Currah looks at how states classify sex, focusing on the contradictions in definitions of sex (as in male and female) from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and agency to agency. He has also written widely on the transgender rights movement in the United States. His teaching interests include sexuality and gender studies, LGBT studies, queer legal theory, public policy, and political theory, including contemporary political thought, biopolitics and surveillance studies.

Books and Publications

"Homonationalism, State Rationalities, and Sex Contradictions." Theory & Event 16.1, March. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2013

Moore, Lisa Jean and Paisley Currah. "Birth/Sex/Time/Bodies: Negotiating Gender Permanence in the New York City Birth Certificate Policy." Feminist Surveillance Studies. Eds. Rachel Dubrofsky and Shoshana Magnet. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. (Books and Publications: Forthcoming Publications) 2013

"Introduction, Symposium on the State of LGBT/Sexuality Studies in Political Science." PS: Political Science & Politics 44.1: 13-16. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 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: Edited Book) 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: 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: Peer Reviewed Article) 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: Other Article) 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: Chapter) 2009

Currah, Paisley and Lisa Jean Moore. "'We Won't Know Who You Are': Contesting Sex Classifications on New York City Birth Certificate Policy." Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 24.3, Summer. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 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: Other Article) 2009

"Expecting Bodies: The Pregnant Man and Transgender Exclusion from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act." Women's Studies Quarterly 36.3&4, December. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2008

"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: Other Article) 2008

Currah, Paisley and Dean Spade, guest co-editors. "The State We're In: Locations of Coercion and Resistance in Trans Policy, Part II." Sexuality Research and Social Policy V.i, March. The entire issue is online here. (Books and Publications: Edited Book) 2008

Currah, Paisley, Lisa Jean Moore and Susan Stryker, guest editors. Trans-. A special issue of Women's Studies Quarterly 36.3&4, December. (Books and Publications: Edited Book) 2008

Currah, Paisley and Dean Spade, guest co-editors. "The State We're In: Locations of Coercion and Resistance in Trans Policy, Part I." Sexuality Research and Social Policy: Journal of National Sexuality Resource Center IV.iv, December. The entire issue is online HERE. (Books and Publications: Edited Book) 2007

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: Other Article) 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: 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: Chapter) 2006

Currah, Paisley, Richard M. Juang and Shannon Price Minter, editors. Transgender Rights. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. The first comprehensive book on the U.S. transgender rights movement. Over the past three decades, the transgender movement has gained visibility and achieved significant victories. Discrimination has been prohibited in several states, dozens of municipalities, and more than 200 private companies, while hate crime laws in eight states have been amended to include gender identity. Yet prejudice and violence against transgender people remain all too common. With analysis from legal and policy experts, activists and advocates, transgender rights assesses the movement's achievements, challenges and opportunities for future action. This groundbreaking book is an indispensable resource in the fight for the freedom and equality of those who cross gender boundaries. (Books and Publications: Edited Book) 2006

"The Other Sex Lawrence v. Texas." Cardozo Women's Law Journal 10.2, Winter: 321-24. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2004

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: Chapter) 2004

"The Transgender Rights Imaginary." Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law 4: 705-20. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 2003

Review of Joanne Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the U.S. Women's Review of Books, February. (Books and Publications: Other Article) 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: 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: Chapter) 2001

Awards, Honors and Fellowships

Michael Lynch Service Award, from the GL/Q Caucus of the Modern Language Association. The award is intended, in Eve Sedgwick's words, "to publicize and celebrate--and as widely as possible--the range, the forms, the energy, and the history of queer activism by academics." (Awards and Honors) 2011

Small Research Grant Award, from The Williams Institute's Small Grants Program, for "Administrating Sex: Investigating How Federal Agencies Develop Criteria for Sex Reclassification." (Grants and Fellowships) 2010

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

Ford Foundation's Education, Sexuality and Religion section of the Knowledge, Freedom and Values Program, for CLAGS's International Resource Network 2007. Principal investigator as leader of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY Graduate Center. $361,000. (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

Distinguished Awardee, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Celebration, June. (Awards and Honors) 2005

Ford Foundation, for CLAGS's International Resource Network (www.irnweb.org). Principal investigator as leader of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, CUNY Graduate Center. $300,000. (Grants and Fellowships) 2004

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

Current book project: The United States of Sex: Legislating, Litigating, and Regulating (Trans)Gender. The book includes previously unpublished chapters on gender classification and the recognition vs. distribution debate; the "freeze-frame" policy currently governing many incarcerated transgender individuals; sovereignty, governmentality, and legal sex; and gender "degenerates" and asexual reproduction. Under contract with NYU Press. 2013

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

"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

"Law's Sexual Geographies," a keynote lecture for the inauguration of the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, Marymount Manhattan College. New York, Feb. 18. (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

'Sex's Place, Gender's Time." Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. Boston, Aug. 28-31. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2008

"'We Don't Know Who You Are': Preventing Fraud, Ensuring Permanence, and Fixing Transgender Identity Documents in the Post 9/11 U.S." Global Sexualities Research Collaborative, Institute for Advanced Study, University of Minnesota. April 19. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Invited Talk) 2007

"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 Jean Moore. "'We Don't Know Who You Are': Birth Certificate Policy Reform, Transgender Activism and Medical Expertise," The Future of Sexuality Research: Methodological to Social Policy Innovations Conference, co-sponsored by the National Consortium for Sexuality Research and Training and The Kinsey Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington, held at the Kinsey Institute, April 9-11. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 2007

Currah, Paisley and Lisa Jean Moore. "'We Don't Know Who You Are': Transgender Identity Documents in the Post 9/11 U.S." Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, New York University. March 28. (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

Currah, Paisley and Lisa Moore. "'We Don't Know Who You Are': Birth Certificate Policy Reform, Transgender Advocacy, and Medical Expertise." Society for the Social Studies of Science. Vancouver, Canada, November. (Conferences, Seminars and Symposiums: Conference Presentation) 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) 2013

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

Member, External Review Team, Women's Studies Department, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. (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

Advisory board, Sexuality and Law, Social Science Research Network, 2008-present. 2013

Currah, Paisley and Susan Stryker, co-founding general editors, Transgender Studies Quarterly, Duke University Press. 2013

Editorial board, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 2005-present. 2013

Editorial board, Women's Studies Quarterly (WSQ), 2004-present. 2013

International editorial board, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 2008-present. 2013

Member, advisory board, Project on Bioethics, Sexuality, and Gender Identity, 2010-present. 2013

Member, advisory board, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, 2010-present. 2013

Member, editorial advisory board, Biopolitics: Medicine, Technoscience, and Health in the Twenty-First Century, a series from New York University Press, 2007-present. 2013

Peer review for journals, including: Feminist Studies, Gender & Society, GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies, Men and Masculinities, New Political Science, Polity, Psychology and Sexuality; Radical History Review, Sex Roles, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, Signs and Women's Studies Quarterly (WSQ). 2012

Grant reviewer, American Psychological Foundation's Placek Large Grant Program and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 2011

Peer review for university presses (Vanderbilt University Press, New York University Press, Palgrave Press) and publishing houses (Routledge). 2011

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

Research consultant to Dean Spade's project, "Deregulating Gender: Model Policies for Transgender Equality," Sexuality Research Fellowship Program, sponsored by the Social Science Research Council with funding from the Ford Foudation, 2005-06. 2006