The Gays Did What Now?:
Tell me a bit about you. Where are you in your career?

Jamey Jesperson:
This talk is somewhat my academic debut, so let me start with the basics: My name is Jamey. I’m a third-year PhD Candidate in History at UVic. And I’m trying to become the first trans woman history prof in Canada! More personally, I grew up between Vancouver Island and southern California (the uncool part) in a big Mormon family. My love for history stems from my genealogist grandfather, whose office of strewn family records and pedigree charts was one of my favorite places to escape to as a child. Due to his many years of research, I can trace the origin of my last name to a 13th-century northern Scandinavian named Jesper, and know that I have Armenian, British, Danish, Mexican, Norwegian, and Swedish ancestors!

TGDWN:
What does your research focus on?

JJ:
In a nutshell, I study Indigenous and colonial “North America” through a trans lens. For the most part, this looks like uncovering the lives of people who substantially crossed (trans-ed) gender boundaries. I am trained in ethnohistorical and counter-archival research methods, which means I specialize in piecing together stories from fragments or biased and unreliable material. More simply, I am a trans historian of absences and omissions in the colonial archive!

TGDWN:
What connects you to your research topics? Why these topics?

JJ:
My regional focus on the North American west comes from growing up along the coast. As a settler scholar committed to decolonization, I feel a particular commitment to historicizing the lands on which I live as an uninvited guest, and pursuing research that can aid in present-day, local resurgence efforts. My studies first began in undergrad in New York, where I had the privilege of organizing with an Indigenous-led collective, NYC Stands with Standing Rock. Learning about histories of land dispossession, environmental racism, and Indigenous resistance and resurgence shaped my politics profoundly. It was then and there that I made a commitment to pursue anti-colonial work, especially as it related to Two-Spirit and trans Indigenous resurgence.

My current dissertation project began as an invitation from Two-Spirit Knowledge Keeper Saylesh Wesley (Stó:lō/Ts’msyen) to prove she is not the first sts’iyóye smestíyexw slhá:li (Twin-Spirit Woman) from her nation. This challenge followed a months-long collaboration in the summer of 2022 where I had the extreme privilege to work with her nation’s research center to record and transcribe her life stories. I am very privileged to have Saylesh, as well as Two-Spirit scholar Dr. Sarah Hunt/Tłaliłila’ogwa (Kwagu’ł), as mentors for my PhD.

I am also trans and an ex-sex worker, but more of that to be divulged in my talk!

TGDWN:
What are three key takeaways talk attendees can expect?

JJ:
1. Trans women have been asserting our right to name and know ourselves for centuries — I have the receipts!

2. Trans femininity is a trans-temporal, trans-cultural lifeway that can be traced — in its many, many variations — to most corners of the world. Likewise, trans misogyny is a long-standing colonial power-structure used to advance, among other things, the settlement and formation of what we now know as “North America.”

3. Trans women are hot, and people have been paying to have sex with us for millennia. Duh!

TGDWN:
What’s the best thing you’ve handled in an archive so far?

JJ:
I was recently gagged to come across a semi-autobiographical adventure novel written about a wealthy Shetlander explorer whose love interest is an Indigenous trans woman! The novel was published in the 1840s and based on the author’s real experiences crossing the Rocky Mountains. I am enthralled not only by the narrative, but by the challenge now as an historian to try and tell a real story based on fiction… based on a real story.

TGDWN:
What mundane fact from this upcoming lecture lives in your head rent free?

JJ:
Not mundane, but I can’t shake it: Fifty percent of all trans women murdered in the twenty-first century are sex workers. This talk is based on my first publication (linked above), which began many years ago out of a desire to historicize the contemporary crisis of trans murder which, if you don’t know, takes the vibrant lives of at least one trans woman around the world every single day. Having spent years mining the archives, I can now say with certainty that trans murder has a centuries-old, colonial legacy in the Americas, with specific roots in the Spanish Empire. With this new side project on sex worker history, I can also declare that the uneven distribution of trans life chances, past and present, is largely contingent on whether or not one is engaging in sex work, and thus at the increased risk of violence from fragile men.