Like its author, Gender/Fucking: The Pleasures and Politics of Living in a Gendered Body defies description. Partially a compilation of poems, short form erotica, and personal vignettes, it’s also a collection of critical essays on transness, queer community, and survival under capitalism.
Basically, if you have a body: read Gender/Fucking.
I recently sat down with the book’s author Florence Ashley (they/them/that bitch) for a wide-ranging conversation on the book, its themes, and being a trans femme academic in 2024. Watch the full interview below.
Short on time? Skip ahead and find out where to get your very own copy of Gender/Fucking here.
Chris Aino Pihlak (she/her) is a trans woman, PhD student at the University of Toronto, and social historian of past articulations of trans feminine existence. In addition to her interest in studies of historical trans feminine desirability, she is a scholar of twentieth-century, Anglophone trans feminine subcultural periodical networks. She hopes her analyses of the complexities and messiness of past trans lives honours those who built the path she now walks on.
Florence Ashley (they/them/that bitch) is a transfeminine professor of law and bioethics at the University of Alberta. A prolific transdisciplinary researcher, Florence has mesmerized many academic fields with their incisive style and irreverent footnotes. Their first book was more boringly titled Banning Transgender Conversion Practices: A Legal and Policy Analysis. When not engaged in research or teaching, Florence enjoys speaking French and oversharing on social media.