Call for Papers: After the tipping point - New perspectives on Danish and Nordic trans studies

2025-11-03

Since 2014, when the international context reached what was coined “the transgender tipping point,” a new awareness and public conversation about trans existence and representation has emerged (Johnson, 2022; Straube, 2020). The trans perspective has become a more recogni-zed player on the minority political scene, just as trans people and trans lives are increasingly represented in art and culture – not just as objects, but as subjects of cultural and political production. However, more recently, we are witnessing a strong backlash, where transness increasingly serves as a symbolic focal point for conservative anti-gender agendas, which have already culminated in heightened violence (Johnson, 2022), and a series of international anti-trans policies, which is also mirrored in Danish/Nordic policies (Ekström, 2025).

This raises fundamental questions about how trans bodies and experiences are positioned within the shared cultural space – between visibility and precarity, representation and instrumentalization. What does it mean that trans visibility simultaneously appears as a sign of social and cultural progress, while also serving as a driving force behind anti-trans policies and violence? This so-called visibility paradox (Tourmaline et al., 2017) points to the dual position that the trans subject occupies in contemporary culture: both as a center of attention and as a figure of increased surveillance, regulation, and violence – a visibility that seems to promise recognition, but is often accompanied by renewed forms of control (DeLire, 2023).

In this publication of Kvinder, Køn & Forskning (Women, Gender & Science) we revisit the growing field of trans studies in a Danish and Nordic context. When Kvinder, Køn & Forskning published its first special issue on trans* in 2011, trans research was a diminutive Danish/Nordic research field, within which only a minority of researchers identified as belonging to a trans category themselves. Today, we have seen a shift where trans and nonbinary researchers are themselves leading the way in sociological, humanistic, and political science (though to a lesser extent in medical research). In this special issue, we therefore particularly invite contributions that include reflections on the significance of the situatedness and standpoint of the research. We also wish to highlight the latest trans research conducted in and/or about a specifically Nordic context.

We invite contributions in the form of original research articles, theoretical analyses, and empirical studies. Contributions may, for example, address questions related to:

  • Trans life in the Nordics
  • Traveling concepts: pros and cons in using international trans theory in an nordic context
  • Non-binaryness
  • Intersex
  • t4t: research ethics and power
  • Trans as method and epistemology
  • Trans in pedagogy and education
  • Trans, racialization and migration
  • Trans ecology and environment
  • Trans history and trans archives
  • Trans art and aesthetics: Cultural reservoirs, trans-canons and anti-canons
  • Trans communities and solidarity
  • Trans health and care
  • Trans, neurodivergence and ablism
  • Trans politics: law and policy work
  • Anti-trans as political agenda and symbol
  • Trans representation–visiblity’s possibilities and limitations
  • Trans-virtuality, trans in AI and algorithms
  • Trans affect and trans materialities
  • Trans and war and global crises
  • Trans and//in the workplace
  •  Post trans/ trans future(s)

Contributions can be submitted in a Scandinavian language or in English. In order to underline the specific nordic branch of transstudies, we encourage authors to use a Scandinavian language, if they have the possibility of doing so. We accept research articles for peer review, but also other non-peer reviewed contributions such as essays, roundtables and interviews.

Important deadlines: 

  • Abstract: January 7, 2026
  • Reply from editors: February 1, 2026
  • Final article (first draft): June 15, 2026
  • Peer-reviews returned to authors: Sept 20, 2026
  • Edited articles to be submitted from authors: Nov 1, 2026

 

For questions or additional information contact Mons Bissenbakker thc211@hum.ku.dk; Molly Occhino occhino@sdu.dk; Tais B. Terletskaja: tais.terletskaja@hum.ku.dk; Storm Møller Madsen: madsen.storm@hum.ku.dk; Sara Barbo: sara.barbo@tlu.ee 

 

Abstracts must be submitted through the website: https://tidsskrift.dk/KKF/information/authors

 

References

Ekström, H. (2025). ‘Leave them kids alone’: Swedish anti-transgender discourse and arguments for protecting children. Critical Discourse Studies, 1-21.

DeLire, L. (2023). Beyond Representational Justice. TEXTE ZUR KUNST - Trans Perspectives 33 (129), p. 48–63.

Johnson, A. H. (2022). Tipping points and shifting expectations: The promise of applied trans studies for building structural competency. Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, 1(1-2), p. 163-177.

Straube, W. (2020). Introduction: Visibility and screen politics after the transgender tipping point. Screen Bodies, 5(1), p. 56-65.

Tourmaline, Stanley, E. A., & Burton, J. (2017). Known unknowns: An introduction to Trap Door. In Tourmaline, E. A. Stanley, & J. Burton (Eds.), Trap door: Trans cultural production and the politics of visibility (pp. xvi–xxvi), MIT Press.