Trans* in college : transgender students' strategies for navigating campus life and the institutional politics of inclusion / Z. Nicolazzo ; foreword by Kristen A. Renn ; afterword by Stephen John Quayle.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

WINNER of 2017 AERA DIVISION J OUTSTANDING PUBLICATION AWARD

CHOICE 2017 Outstanding Academic Title

This is both a personal book that offers an account of the author's own trans* identity and a deeply engaged study of trans* collegians that reveals the complexities of trans* identities, and how these students navigate the trans* oppression present throughout society and their institutions, create community and resilience, and establish meaning and control in a world that assumes binary genders.

This book is addressed as much to trans* students themselves - offering them a frame to understand the genders that mark them as different and to address the feelings brought on by the weight of that difference - as it is to faculty, student affairs professionals, and college administrators, opening up the implications for the classroom and the wider campus.

This book not only remedies the paucity of literature on trans* college students, but does so from a perspective of resiliency and agency. Rather than situating trans* students as problems requiring accommodation, this book problematizes the college environment and frames trans* students as resilient individuals capable of participating in supportive communities and kinship networks, and of developing strategies to promote their own success.

Z Nicolazzo provides the reader with a nuanced and illuminating review of the literature on gender and sexuality that sheds light on the multiplicity of potential expressions and outward representations of trans* identity as a prelude to the ethnography ze conducted with nine trans* collegians that richly documents their interactions with, and responses to, environments ranging from the unwittingly offensive to explicitly antagonistic.

The book concludes by giving space to the study's participants to themselves share what they want college faculty, staff, and students to know about their lived experiences. Two appendices respectively provide a glossary of vocabulary and terms to address commonly asked questions, and a description of the study design, offered as guide for others considering working alongside marginalized population in a manner that foregrounds ethics, care, and reciprocity.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Situating The Study
• Interlude: Introducing My Community
• 2 A Review of Trans*-Related Research
• Interlude: Bruised by Data
• 3 The Gender Binary Discourse
• 4 Compulsory Heterogenderism
• 5 Resilience as a Verb
• 6 The (Tiring) Labor of Practicing Trans* Genders
• 7 A Constellation of Kinship Networks
• Interlude: An Ending Full of Beginnings
• 8 Implications
• Epilogue
• Afterword
• Glossary
• Appendix
• References
• About the Author
• Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

An increased public awareness about trans* individuals (trans* is an inclusive term for anyone along the gender non-conforming identity spectrum) has been accompanied by a growing body of published research into what might be called "the neglected T" of the conveniently lumped-together-as-singular "LGBT community." The author, a faculty associate in the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Northern Illinois University, offers this well-written, revealing ethnographic study of nine trans* college students and sheds light on an area of gender identity that has long needed attention, especially in the wake of an upsurge in bias crimes and a concerted effort to thwart the rights of trans* people. (It's not just about the bathroom!) The book gives voice to the students within a broad understanding of sexuality and identity that people have tended to look at from a binary perspective (gay/straight, male/female). Such an oversimplification ignores the lives of those who are most directly affected. Because the book specifically considers how trans* individuals function within a college setting, it is especially recommended as a must-read resource for higher education administrators, faculty, and those providing support services. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through practitioners. --Howard M. Miller, Mercy College