Queer and Trans Histories of Disability

A few years ago, I decided to teach a course titled Queer and Trans Histories of Disability during a stint as a visiting lecturer at Mount Holyoke College. I created the class, in part, as an opportunity to think about my research in a relatively teaching-intensive position. I was then at the beginning stages of a book project on the history of a small and densely interconnected network of disability activists who insisted on the importance of disability, access, and care for the lesbian feminist movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s. More broadly, though, I created the class to puzzle through the curious absence of disability analysis in queer and trans historiography, despite the ubiquity of archival evidence of disability in many of the collections most used by queer and trans historians. Disability seemed, to me, to be everywhere and nowhere in queer and trans historiography.Queer and trans history is not unique in this regard. The disability historian Douglas Baynton (2001) made a similar historiographical claim in an early field-shaping essay. Disability, Baynton argued, played a key role in the three major citizenship debates of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: women's suffrage, abolition, and immigration. In each case, opponents justified the inequality of women, Black people, and immigrants by casting each group as inherently disabled. Yet historians rarely paused to consider the rhetorical deployment of disability in these major citizenship debates, at least not before Baynton published his essay in 2001. In arguing for the significance of disability to such well-trod historical contexts as suffrage, abolition, and immigration, Baynton more generally aimed to bring disability “into the mainstream of historical study” (34). In the years since, disability history has grown into a legible subfield. But arguably, Baynton's point about the lack of attention to disability in other historical fields remains more or less true.The stakes of engaging disability are particularly high for queer and trans histories. Many of the field's persistent preoccupations directly concern disability. Queer and trans historians repeatedly return to the medicalization of homosexuality, the entwined histories of intersex and trans medicine, a social-movement era that coincided with the disability rights movement, and the AIDS epidemic. Yet as I put together a syllabus, I struggled to find queer and trans histories that meaningfully engaged with disability.Though something called Queer and Trans Disability History did not properly exist when I put together my syllabus in 2021, I did not feel alone in my conviction that such a thing should exist. In fact, I knew of numerous queer and trans histories of disability on the horizon, including the three books I take up in this review essay.1 Not surprisingly, much of this work returns to the very contexts that queer and trans historians think we know so well. Jess Whatcott and Regina Kunzel offer histories of state-run institutions that Michel Foucault once theorized as part of a “carceral archipelago,” while Kunzel and Patrick McKelvey retell the story of the social-movement era from a new angle.2 In what follows, I will zoom in on Whatcott's Menace to the Future (2024), McKelvey's Disability Works (2024), and Kunzel's In the Shadow of Diagnosis (2024) to ask what a body of work on the queer and trans histories of disability can do for queer, trans, and disability studies.In Menace to the Future, Jess Whatcott tracks the influence of eugenic ideas on the development of a bureaucratic maze of state institutions in California at the turn of the century. In the early twentieth century, California was home to six psychiatric hospitals, three homes for the so-called feebleminded, three juvenile reform schools, one short-lived industrial farm for women, and two prisons. Whatcott returns to the history of these state-run institutions as an organizer in California's abolitionist movement. A history of the present, Menace to the Future excavates a history of eugenics at state-run institutions to tease out the lingering legacies of this history in the current era of mass incarceration.In doing so, Menace to the Future joins an already robust body of literature on the history of eugenics in California. The term eugenics was first coined by the British statistician Francis Galton in 1883 to describe a scientific approach to human breeding. Eugenics quickly traveled globally, most infamously providing a scientific rationale for Nazi Germany's involuntary sterilization and mass murder of millions of people. California eagerly adopted many eugenics policies in the early twentieth century, at a time when many intellectuals, scientists, reformers, and politicians proudly referred to themselves as eugenicists. Between 1909 and 1960, California forcibly sterilized twenty thousand people in state institutions, one-third of sixty thousand sterilizations performed in the United States. The history of California's sterilization program has been meticulously documented in important books, such as Wendy Kline's Building a Better Race (2005) and Alexandra Minne Stern's Eugenic Nation (2005). Whatcott contributes to this conversation by turning their attention away from sterilization and toward the segregation of people into state-run institutions as itself a form of eugenics. They coin the term carceral eugenics to describe how state institutions in the early twentieth century functioned to “control the life chances of groups of people . . . deemed biologically undesirable” and how the same logic continues to operate in prisons and immigration detention centers today (3).To make this case, Whatcott aggregates evidence from thirteen institutions that existed in California during the eugenics era. They consulted the records of Stockton State Hospital (founded in 1851), Sonoma State Home (founded in 1883), Mendocino State Hospital (founded in 1893), and Ventura School for Girls (founded in 1913). They also visited Patton State Hospital, which was founded in 1893 as the Southern California State Asylum and now doubles as a museum and a forensic psychiatric hospital. In addition to their research on individual institutions, Whatcott draws heavily from reports prepared by the Board of Charities and Corrections, a “division of the state bureaucracy” created in 1903 to oversee prisons and other state-run institutions (170).In taking up a wide range of institutions, Whatcott tells the story of eugenics in broad strokes rather than as a granular institutional history. This approach, at times, allows them to offer important theoretical insights for queer and disability studies scholars. They, for example, historicize the concept of a “defective” class as it circulated in eugenics in the early twentieth century. This category, they argue, cannot be simply understood as a pejorative precursor to our contemporary concept of disability. Certainly, some people in state-run institutions had conditions that the Americans with Disabilities Act would legally recognize as disabilities today. But many of the people diagnosed as “feebleminded” or “mentally defective” did not. Whatcott argues that attempts to parse the distinction between those who were and were not “actually” disabled at once misses the process through which the state materially “disabled” everyone in its custody and inadvertently accepts the assumption that some impairments necessitate institutionalization.Thus, rather than projecting back our contemporary concept of disability, Whatcott instead proposes that we think of the people in state-run institutions as queer. As those conversant in queer studies will likely anticipate, Whatcott is not using queer as a loose synonym for people who engage in “same-sex sex” (50). Rather, their book follows Cathy Cohen's proposed itinerary for queer in her now classic essay, “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens” (1997), the most heavily cited essay in the history of GLQ. Frustrated by the unmarked whiteness of most manifestations of queer organizing, Cohen argued for a queer politics instead organized around a coalition of people who share non-normative and marginal positions outside dominant power, as exemplified by the eponymous punk, bulldagger, and welfare queen. Drawing from this framework, Whatcott uses the word queer to describe the subjugation of people ensnared in state institutions, regardless of how they line up with politicized identity categories of the present.3Whatcott's approach to the past allows them to make big claims without getting bogged down in historical detail. However, there are trade-offs to their wide angle of vision. As they admit in the opening pages of the book, they do not have a clear sense of the racial demographics of the thirteen institutions under study, which obviously matters for a project that aspires to think race, gender, sexuality, and disability together. They attribute this gap to “reasons ranging from inconsistent record keeping across institutions to evolving racial categorizations” (13). I do not, however, get the sense that this information is entirely unknowable. In her more study, the racial of everyone to a home for the so-called founded in California in Whatcott consulted the of State the book, they the of racial such as and in But of of the racial in records would be for Whatcott to across a range of institutions, many of which were and in for much than and other in the and have down the racial demographics of state institutions by an more project made through their on this Whatcott argues that state-run institutions the logic of But without clear evidence of the racial of the institutions in their study, Whatcott cannot offer an analysis of how institutions at in time or how this addition to the of taking on such a Whatcott's book also the of about the of people that historians and Regina Kunzel so in their histories of and in this the most part, Menace to the Future the archival to the of at state-run institutions This the records at their California State records that offer clear into the of state-run institutions and and to the of the people in institutional to in the archival many similar operate in a to have Whatcott to consider some people have in the in the and the they made I however, be more by these they were in archival evidence of a in a In a essay on archival in queer and trans their research for their on Queer and trans they argue, most archival however, did to them for the archival with and that they when they into the at the records be by the conditions of their they are in some as Kunzel offer and by people a of this of of eugenics from into the pages of the of their book In their Whatcott few of by people in state institutions they a of from at Stockton State Hospital, titled of Whatcott their they that the themselves a more of than the in the In the they a by a who to be from a into which a few think have a I of to A few years this Whatcott in of a at Patton State Hospital which a of from the by about these with They so to the of people to be by archival or by by the in the Whatcott instead for evidence of such as on an simply to have a on the to it or a Whatcott that people the state to would in their I with Whatcott about the of of in a of Yet in this Whatcott their through an of performed by generally Whatcott's lack of attention to individual people be a of the Menace to the Future is most when it on a the influence of eugenic ideas in state institutions and this history continues to in the Menace to the Future is a and book approach to the past will likely to of an in queer studies and disability studies with less for the densely of and to the Future back at a time in history when California eagerly state-run institutions to “defective” Patrick McKelvey's Disability Works up Menace to the Future a the the as its disability than people with disabilities into state-run institutions, for a of and to people with disabilities Disability Works is a history of the role of and in the of as a approach to in and McKelvey at uses the term to describe in But despite the of that the Disability Works rarely from with a in the history of than Disability Works six each of which a archival history of a or the first two the story of two that The two zoom in on a who used while the politics that this McKelvey's two studies on the for the and two institutions that an at the of the McKelvey did not out to a queer and lesbian historical each of the six some the of McKelvey's of historical simply the of and in and and of queer in disability history and disabled in queer But the of Disability Works also from McKelvey's for queer as a queer who first toward disability studies to the history of should be clear from the Disability Works a and of the between and the and who in its pages did not share a politics or for his so, McKelvey a clear for historical particularly to and across time with McKelvey's and In the of McKelvey to to research in at the was a for much of his made an early with to a about a and his that as a at the School of and a for A a a few years before his in from a at the of in his into his despite of archival to is the first to consider who is the of two of Disability Works as as McKelvey's Yet McKelvey not about with the of this to his in the In fact, McKelvey very about McKelvey a history of the for Disability and the a short-lived founded by in also with his and a who as an and these McKelvey as a politics that the of citizenship at the of In the late on a project by the and Act a program that to with as a during these used his time and to and the an during its which with in McKelvey a history of the which from a about the of disabled people to a to a their to the and to each the was founded as a McKelvey how the of a disabled not to the to this existed as a a about with much of the and his a on the of and down the from their a and of between the years and In their which McKelvey as a project of and themselves as in institutions, including a and two In one such as the of I was what my I it was that I did at In the analysis that follows, McKelvey such as a to the of that one to a McKelvey the of and project In a McKelvey to a that the and for a for the of the founded the of the project of disabled for an however, as a from the politics as As in an the classic as a between disabled out in and as they for part in a the of disabled find the of this not of Disability and lesbian historical share and McKelvey also to a who the in the when her as the of the created of in As the of the Between and the development of that that the the of the the same time that many and were from the and her circulated in a densely interconnected network of with the at its This group played a role in and and disability in the including the for the in and an about the life of who was a of and her a lesbian at the most of the by and her do not with a politics of the the McKelvey as the of a study, which a program at that for disabled also from a some with the of historical in was and including diagnosed as and with AIDS for much of the 1980s. and also in However, the who has to in for the of Black in the United is an for a book that toward more of history This is also the that centers the entwined histories of and disability, historicize the whiteness of the As McKelvey most as a in of up the distinction of from other welfare that on the of the in the early at a time when the the already on disability in the McKelvey not this as the of Rather, argues that a a on the of people with other that with the of McKelvey the as a its in its as a to for its aimed to the and of the in its care a project be in the of prepared to a of But as McKelvey Black disability politics also this as part of a history of that disability as a to the of and its Disability Works and Menace to the Future themselves as queer McKelvey and Whatcott something by queer. As we have Whatcott uses the term queer to a of people to the of the They are not on what they term queer as by their attention to the of in eugenics In queer on in McKelvey's book, at to the of and lesbian historical at other to the of and and other to McKelvey's of the of these disability remains to queer in In the book in this review essay, Regina Kunzel and disability together in so many by to a in which from an of In the Shadow of Diagnosis is a and history of in with early that homosexuality, queer and trans historians have about the role of and trans in the of queer and trans Yet has been about the psychiatric of homosexuality, an that has to some historiographical for example, the to which ideas traveled outside historians have this to contexts to that queer and trans people of the medicalization of in the century. Kunzel this psychiatric ideas about during the of and influence in the United one In the Shadow of Diagnosis a history of how of Kunzel to that they and and how this in But more In the Shadow of Diagnosis tells the story of how queer and trans people their In this Kunzel from a archival In a was with records of historical significance from the of Hospital in likely to many as the that in in as the first psychiatric a wide range of under during its In through the a of under the care of a for his work on human their the an and who founded the in and History at the of quickly called who had a at the of Kunzel's the made their to the offer into the of people. his years at a of to as part of their a historian for her work on queer carceral the importance of this which was some of and in by of Yet in her through the of Kunzel that from three one had with to a review of study, Kunzel can simply such rather than to the Kunzel her these her They her that it would be to a story of how queer and trans people and the that they were Kunzel the that queer and trans people a of out on their were into psychiatric by their or the for those who a to psychiatric ideas about more generally this for granular evidence of people who in a their them or of the In a Kunzel to offer a history of psychiatric a term to describe a by that on psychiatric and psychiatric as as on queer and a lesbian who with her persistent of a who of together of to the and a group who the simply to a Kunzel who has been to a the as a of carceral Kunzel how these and queer and trans inadvertently queer and trans people to and to their individual in the outside the to the history of the and lesbian with In the and early activists with a of that research into the of their movement. A few years and lesbian activists as their of and as and engaging them in and In and lesbian activists in from the and of an that many to as a rights Kunzel tells a more and lesbian people from their psychiatric and lesbian activists down on the claim that they were and a that the most and This played a role in and lesbian politics in the that other this how and to be and from one despite together the Shadow of Diagnosis is an to the history of and the history of that the importance of the psychiatric of to In the Kunzel disability studies as an that I these pages with as who is to with Kunzel that disability studies has the to histories of The influence of disability however, remains the example, in the Kunzel that disability studies and her on the of to Kunzel has more to about how and they in the first Yet in this Kunzel and to a In the body of the instead this through essay to Not entirely and the in that people not I not, to be that a queer has in disability about and AIDS before her from in and in fact, been as a by including McKelvey I would that this tells something about Kunzel's Kunzel her analysis of the to by so much about in the first can we for the of their This together their about the of to their they to their power, as Kunzel they a of numerous Kunzel the of disability studies who would be more to the toward as one of a project a “defective” in her Kunzel disability studies for her the with make this case, Kunzel quickly the field's of the that is and Disability how as a that a of and of This however, some important in the history of disability and disability many activists in the disability rights movement of the late and early 1970s to the between disabled and people, not the made by the and lesbian some disability studies that disabled people to operate as the unmarked of the Kunzel the influence of the movement on the and lesbian of not historicize the generally between the and disability rights the of many in the movement with the of rather than Kunzel for the of disability from the body of her book, I this a that the medicalization of as an for contemporary disability I of my class on the Queer and Trans Histories of to the class with two of the between disability, and the one they understood disability, queer, and trans as categories that for some people, including the other they some between disability and which some as Many of the in the first of the syllabus histories of the medicalization of As a of the state of the at the of these were by disability and many used the word disability Yet I we these as the for our of the historical of and disability. I was not prepared for my to the very that was understood for a time as a that this history some as an for the of disability, the role of in people. But many were also of such a which they of disability. to at the my to that in the past as a disability, as they a of disability in the I had In the Shadow of I have made a more for how into the of queer and trans people. But I not this would the of their have to that my were with the that fields have to their As a of disability disability history disability at the of historical in two times, historians of disability the development of the concept of disability and its with ideas about race, class, gender, sexuality, and other times, historians of disability to the of disabled people in historical In the early of queer created the of and to describe the of similar in the of queer to my through disability as a can the medicalization of homosexuality, this is at the of the of disability. Disability, queer, and trans in their and will up one in histories of the medicalization of But this is in and disability so together Whatcott's queer history of McKelvey's history of disability, and Kunzel's history of as important early attempts to historicize and disability together. by they the of that disability, and can line make it to up to make a claim about the state of what I now feel as an subfield. But these also the of queer and trans disability historical work to how the and at the of queer, trans, and disability studies and