EASE EDI Webinar: What does it mean for cis people to write about trans people’s lives?

Tuesday, 24 June 2025

For over a century now academics have written about the lives of trans people. While throughout this period trans people have also written about their lives, the work of cisgender academics and clinicians has dominated public conversations and academic thought. In this century there has, however, been a shift towards centering the voices of trans people, with a growing number of research projects and their associated outputs being led by trans people. Nonetheless, cisgender people continue to predominate in the field of trans studies. Whether this be due to personal investment, careerism, the challenges that trans people face entering into academia, or the sheer volume of cisgender people compared to trans people, it is always likely to be the case that cisgender people constitute a significant number of people working in the field of trans studies.

This presentation used this background context to think about what it means to work and write in the field of trans studies, with a focus on cisgender people. What does it mean to create meaningful collaborations with trans people? What forms of relationships with communities are essential to formulating research questions and undertaking ethical research? And how do cisgender people navigate decisions about language and terminology? Importantly, this focus on cisgender people is not intended to yet again recenter cisgender people within the field of trans studies. Rather, it is to think more deeply about the ethical sustainability of a field where the group who are the focus of the field still continue to be marginalised. In other words, how, then, do cisgender people working in trans studies take responsibility for this imbalance?

This webinar was brought to you by the EASE Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. It was free and open to all, please share in your networks.