"Cameron Awkward-Rich's The Terrible We is both a metacritical investigation of the roots of trans studies and a renarrativization of trans experience. It argues that the foundational gesture of trans studies is the disavowal of maladjustment-the rallying cry, "I am not sick"-most visible in activist attempts to have gender dysphoria and similar conditions removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Against this narrative, Awkward-Rich argues that madness, disability, racial or gendered marginalization, and bad feelings might all be ways to affirm trans experience. Rather than impediments to societal integration and well-being, these mis-fit experiences are also generative for trans life, thought, and creativity. Thus The Terrible We argues for and demonstrates a model of transgender studies that does not begin with the premise that a commitment to doing justice to trans life requires the wholesale disavowal of transgender's historical association with madness. In addition to trans studies, this project makes important contributions to disability and mad studies, as well as queer and feminist affect theory"--
Observing that trans studies was founded on a split from and disavowal of madness, illness, and disability, Cameron Awkward-Rich argues for and models a trans criticism that works against this disavowal.
In The Terrible We Cameron Awkward-Rich thinks with the bad feelings and mad habits of thought that persist in both transphobic discourse and trans cultural production. Observing that trans studies was founded on a split from and disavowal of madness, illness, and disability, Awkward-Rich argues for and models a trans criticism that works against this disavowal. By tracing the coproduction of the categories of disabled and transgender in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century and analyzing transmasculine literature and theory by Eli Clare, Elliott DeLine, Dylan Scholinski, and others, Awkward-Rich suggests that thinking with maladjustment might provide new perspectives on the impasses arising from the conflicted relationships among trans, feminist, and queer. In so doing, he demonstrates that rather than only impeding or confining trans life, thought, and creativity, forms of maladjustment have also been and will continue to be central to their development.
Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient
