From Black Transgender Studies to Colin Dayan: Notes on Methodology

This reflection argues that the oeuvre of Colin Dayan provides critical tools for the elaboration of black transgender studies. Specifically, the authors analyze the trial and imprisonment of black transgender activist CeCe MacDonald using Dayan’s work as a methodological model. The essay engages Dayan’s work on race and gender in Haiti, History, and the Gods to elaborate a critique of how racism and transphobia become intimately intertwined in the attack against MacDonald. The authors then turn to Dayan’s more recent work in The Law Is a White Dog to discuss how transphobia is informed by racism in the course of MacDonald’s experience in the criminal justice system.