Nationality American Role Writer · juliaserano.com Name Julia Serano | Website www.juliaserano.com Employer UC Berkeley Education Columbia University | |
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Occupation Evolutionary and developmental biology researcher Known for Writer, spoken word performer, trans bi activist, biologist Residence Oakland, California, United States Books Whipping Girl, Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive Similar People Nomy Lamm, Lynn Breedlove, Rae Spoon, Laura Jane Grace, Girl Talk | ||
2013 10 21 Julia Serano bluestockings 580512
Dr. Julia Michelle Serano is an American writer, spoken-word performer, trans-bi activist, and biologist. Serano currently lives in Oakland, California and is the author of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. Her second book, Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, was published on September 10, 2013 by Seal Press. Her third book, Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism, she published herself under Switch Hitter Press, which she founded along with Switch Hitter Records. Outspoken is a 2017 Lambda Literary Award finalist.
Contents
She lists her work appearing in queer, feminist, and pop-culture magazines, including Bitch, Clamor, Kitchen Sink, LiP, make/shift, and Transgender Tapestry. Excerpts of her work have appeared in The Believer and The San Francisco Chronicle, and on NPR.
On her website, juliaserano.com, Serano said that, based on her insights into gender and her experiences as a trans woman, she has been invited to speak about transgender and trans women’s issues at numerous universities, often at queer-, feminist-, psychology-, and philosophy-themed conferences, and she said her writings have also been used in teaching materials in gender studies courses across the United States.
Early life
On her blog, SwitchHitter.net, Julia Serano said she first consciously recognized in herself a desire to be female during the late 1970s when she was 11 years old. A few years later, she began crossdressing. At first, she crossdressed secretively, but eventually she started identifying herself openly as a "male crossdresser." Serano attended her first support group for crossdressers in 1994 while living in Kansas.
Soon afterward, Serano moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where she met her wife, Dani, in 1998. Around this time, Serano began identifying as not only a crossdresser but also as transgender and bigender. In 2001, she began medically transitioning and identifying as a trans woman.
Other endeavors
Serano describes herself as a poetry slam champion, and has given spoken-word performances at universities as well as at events such as the National Queer Arts Festival, San Francisco Pride Dyke March and Trans March stages, Ladyfest, outCRY!, Femme 2006 and in The Vagina Monologues. The website for Serano's band, Bitesize, listed her as guitarist-vocalist.
On her blog, Serano says she organizes and hosts GenderEnders, a performance series that features the work of transgender, intersex, and genderqueer artists and allies. It has produced 20 shows. She said she received a grant to curate "The Penis Issue: Trans and Intersex Women Speak Their Minds," a spoken-word event, as part of the 2007 National Queer Arts Festival. She also says on her blog that she is also a biologist who works as a researcher at UC Berkeley in the field of evolutionary and developmental biology and that she received her doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from Columbia University.