Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex
Title
Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex
Description
Originally published in 2011, Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex is an anthology of interviews, stories, essays, and manuals compiled and edited by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith. The second and expanded edition was published in 2015 and includes a forward by CeCe McDonald along with work by Chelsea Manning, who writes about trans identity, the military, and prison industrial complex, outlining the ways in which they intersect with, complicate, and exacerbate one another. Eric A. Stanley works as an assistant professor in the Gender and Sexuality Studies department at University of California, Riverside, and has co directed two films. They also co edited Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility, which is being published by MIT Press later this year. More specifically, their research and work revolves around abolitionist studies and critical theory. As stated on the book’s back cover, Nat Smith is a “light-skinned Black, queer, gender-variant nerd,” (Captive Genders). Smith works in similar fields as Stanley and has ties with Critical Resistance and the Trans/Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project.
This anthology was created as a response to the inextricable ties between the prison industrial complex and transgender people, specifically transgender people of color, and serves as an intervention in the ways in which police surveillance regulates trans bodies through coercive and often invisible ways. As noted by prominent scholars and theorists such as Michel Foucault and Angela Davis, prisons are often taken as self evident, meaning that they are kept out of sight and out of mind, rendering them both incontestable and somewhat natural, where the general populus internalizes punishment as something distant, necessary, and natural. This work takes these critiques of the prison industrial complex one step further by zeroing in on violence inflicted upon trans people, and the ways in which the state regulates trans bodies both inside and outside of carceral institutions. What makes this work so remarkable though is the form it takes. Not only does it include works by over thirty individuals ranging from artists to activists to academics, but centers people of color in the movement towards reform and abolition. Rather than working from the perspective of those who have never been incarcerated and whose only relationship to the prison industrial complex is strictly theoretical, this anthology utilizes standpoint epistemology, concentrating on the knowledge of those who have experienced incarceration and surveillance first hand, regardless of their roots in academia.
As a cultural object, this anthology’s role in the archive is two fold. First and foremost, as noted by Grace Dunham in their 2016 New Yorker piece, people on the inside are consistently denied contemporary resources. They have little or no access to the internet, and often say that they are stuck in the past, distant from political goings on and unable to engage with current events, both pertaining to their rights and beyond. One of Stanley and Smith’s motives for this book was to have it distributed to trans identifying people on the inside. Because internet access is so limited and regulated, printed text has become one way for those who are incarcerated to engage with material and discourse related to politics and power. This anthology has been cited both as a piece that has helped people understand their identities but also to make sense of and break down the cruelty and violence they have suffered at the hands of the state and its actors. Culture can be art, it can be fashion, performance, and music, but it can also be practices, texts, and resources that bring people together and help people make sense of their history, where they come from, and how they relate to other people. This text is something that can be inherited, passed on, and discussed. It can be utilized to form bonds, both of affection and resistance. While written partially for people on the inside, it is also directed at those on the outside, and at those who have the privilege and power to intervene in such barbaric practices. It almost exists as a manual, instructing people in methods of abolition and reform. Lastly, this anthology provides the opportunity for cultural recognition, where individuals whose work is often relegated to the margins can be both celebrated and utilized in political discourse.
This anthology was created as a response to the inextricable ties between the prison industrial complex and transgender people, specifically transgender people of color, and serves as an intervention in the ways in which police surveillance regulates trans bodies through coercive and often invisible ways. As noted by prominent scholars and theorists such as Michel Foucault and Angela Davis, prisons are often taken as self evident, meaning that they are kept out of sight and out of mind, rendering them both incontestable and somewhat natural, where the general populus internalizes punishment as something distant, necessary, and natural. This work takes these critiques of the prison industrial complex one step further by zeroing in on violence inflicted upon trans people, and the ways in which the state regulates trans bodies both inside and outside of carceral institutions. What makes this work so remarkable though is the form it takes. Not only does it include works by over thirty individuals ranging from artists to activists to academics, but centers people of color in the movement towards reform and abolition. Rather than working from the perspective of those who have never been incarcerated and whose only relationship to the prison industrial complex is strictly theoretical, this anthology utilizes standpoint epistemology, concentrating on the knowledge of those who have experienced incarceration and surveillance first hand, regardless of their roots in academia.
As a cultural object, this anthology’s role in the archive is two fold. First and foremost, as noted by Grace Dunham in their 2016 New Yorker piece, people on the inside are consistently denied contemporary resources. They have little or no access to the internet, and often say that they are stuck in the past, distant from political goings on and unable to engage with current events, both pertaining to their rights and beyond. One of Stanley and Smith’s motives for this book was to have it distributed to trans identifying people on the inside. Because internet access is so limited and regulated, printed text has become one way for those who are incarcerated to engage with material and discourse related to politics and power. This anthology has been cited both as a piece that has helped people understand their identities but also to make sense of and break down the cruelty and violence they have suffered at the hands of the state and its actors. Culture can be art, it can be fashion, performance, and music, but it can also be practices, texts, and resources that bring people together and help people make sense of their history, where they come from, and how they relate to other people. This text is something that can be inherited, passed on, and discussed. It can be utilized to form bonds, both of affection and resistance. While written partially for people on the inside, it is also directed at those on the outside, and at those who have the privilege and power to intervene in such barbaric practices. It almost exists as a manual, instructing people in methods of abolition and reform. Lastly, this anthology provides the opportunity for cultural recognition, where individuals whose work is often relegated to the margins can be both celebrated and utilized in political discourse.
Creator
Stanley, Eric A. (co editor)
Smith, Nat (co editor)
McDonald, CeCe (foreward)
Bassichis, Morgan
Lee, Alexander
Spade, Dean
Worley, Jennifer
Avicolli Mecca, Tommi
Guidotto, Nadia
Young, Kalaniopua
Ware, Wesley
Ampu, Ralowe T.
Velasquez-Potts, Michelle C.
Meiners, Erica R.
Nair, Yasmin
Dillon, Stephen
Goring, Clifton / Raine Sweet, Candi
Witherspoon, Paula Rae
Cholo
nemec, blake
Johnson, Janette Louise
Meronek, Toshio
Lambel, S.
Donahue, Jayden
Huang, Vanessa
Oparah, Julia Chinyere
Gossett, Che
Saffin, Lori
Manning, Chelsea E.
Shelley, Kristopher "Krystal"
Girshick, Lori
Publisher
AK Press
Date
2015
Format
Anthology
Language
English
Type
Book
Citation
Stanley, Eric A. (co editor) et al., “Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex,” An Archive of Trans Culture, accessed October 28, 2026, https://transcultural.oberlincollegelibrary.org/items/show/9.