“but all day long I would be training myself to think, to understand, to criticize, to know myself; I was seeking for the absolute truth: this preoccupation did not exactly encourage polite conversation.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter
“The word betray does not apply.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Aoife, PhD
Aoife’s CV (March 2016)
I am Aoife: a post-op transsexual (meaning — I was born male; suffered tremendously from terrifying sex dysmorphia; and obtained expert medical therapies and treatments that enable me to live as a trans woman). This is, at least partly, how I describe my own concept of myself as a trans person. Most importantly to note, however, is that I cannot and do not speak for other trans persons, whose narratives and perspectives may be very different from mine. There is no standard trans paradigm. My essays gathered herein (none of which I have retroactively edited) are often contradictory, and they represent my admittedly inconsistent, in process, prone to revision viewpoints
I am, after years of thinking about the matter, certain of this: there is no such thing as a gender critical perspective, or a gender critical trans woman. There is only gender abolitionism, which is inherently antithetical and antagonistic to the existential fact of transgender people’s lives and identities.
Having left atrophying academia for Silicon Valley, I now work in LGBT issues, tech, and information security. I am training for my CISSP certification. I also write and consult as an author and lecturer with scholarly expertise in psychoanalytic feminism, transgender studies, and the sexuation of the body. I was awarded my doctorate from the University of British Columbia (2008).
My areas of research include corporeal feminist analysis: gender and interculturality; philosophy of embodiment; phenomenology and transsexed subjectivity; ideologies of “the Feminine”, emergent media, and translation.
My first book Ancestral Recall: The Celtic Revival and Japanese Modernism is forthcoming in Spring, 2016, with McGill-Queen’s University Press (Montréal). In this monograph, I examine the confluence of anthropological texts, nativist folklore, and heritage as gendered reenactments across a transnational dynamic in the early twentieth century, between two island geographies, Japan and Ireland.
My ongoing work analyzes the narrative somatics of transgenderism as they relate to psychological and cultural praxis, particularly in the form of identarian selfhood. I comparatively pursue these topics in my current manuscript entitled The Crosswords of Trans Identities: Subjectivity Narratives and Gender Critical Feminism. In this work, I consider and evaluate the contemporary implications of gender identity as discourse, metaphysic, and social intersubjectivity.
I have published almost a dozen peer reviewed articles. My publications explore a number of issues related to intercultural constructions of girlhood, the psychology of sexism, and prescriptive femininity paradigms in socialized education. On these themes, I’ve also written frequently on Japanese digital entertainment and female adolescence, critiquing the inculcation of gender norms in contemporary manga and anime in connection to LGBT issues. You can have a look at my academic profile for my research page.
My primary passions are chess, #python, theology, ballet, books, cider, and prim clothing.
In summary, Aoife is a nerdy, nunnabe bookshop browsing girl in droopy skirts who doesn’t have two tosses to give (#subtweet). But I am passionate about questioning. Thank you for reading!
INTERVIEWS
“La società e la Chiesa cattolica in cerca di risposte sulle persone transgender.” With Daniel Hitchens and Giacamo Tessaro for Progetto Gionata (Italy). In Italian.
“The Truth about Transsexuality.” With David Hitchens for The Catholic Herald (UK).
“The Trans Women who say that Trans Women Aren’t Women.” With Michelle Goldberg for Slate.
“Does the Catholic Church Have a Problem with Trans Women and Men?” With David Hitchens for Religion and Ethics (Australian Broadcasting Company)
“Trans and Catholic.” With Melinda Selmys for Patheos.
“ ‘Matrix’ de dhushláin ag an Phobal Trasinsneach in Éirinn” [The “Matrix” of Challenges for the Transgender Community in Ireland].With Méabh Ní Thuathaláin for Gaelscéal (Ireland). In Irish Gaelic.
TEACHING
I was an adjunct (contract, part time, low pay, not tenurable, almost nil benefits) professor at UBC, teaching courses on feminism and gender, introductions to psychoanalysis, and comparative literature. I won a teaching prize while in the English Department, and my ratings were consistently amongst the absolute highest across the entire Faculty of Arts. Nonetheless, overall professional conditions were intolerable, and I resigned my position. I now live in Cupertino, California.
I wrote most of my first book while sponsored by a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship award (2012-2013), This manuscript was strongly endorsed for publication by three external peer reviewers; and MQUP’s Publications Review Committee have approved the monograph on grounds of editorial excellence. Most graciously, the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program fully funded the printing and publication costs with a sponsorship prize.
Languages: Japanese, Irish Gaelic, Latin, and coffee shop Dutch.
Film stills are from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and An Education (2009): two exceptionally good movies about false consciousness, rebellion, and female education. Artwork by Cecily Brown.
EYESIGHT ADVISORY
I’m sight impaired. Legally blind in one eye, which is as crooked as Jean-Paul Sartre’s, I suffer from a pendulum nystagmus and partial sight in the other (even using a telescope is impossible — my one working eye cannot stay still). Multiple operations, and I am do for another, have stabilized rather than improved my condition. So, working with text<->speech conversion software, as I often do, can lead to making a few typos. Embarrassing ones. I never substantially revise anything on my blog, ever; but voluntary editorial feedback from friends does help me to fix what my bad eyesight misses in terms of errors in spelling and syntax. Thank you for your understanding: perfection is not something my blog can offer. Nor a regular schedule! I aim to publish approximately once every fortnight, but that depends on my other projects.
In terms of accessibility, I am a devoted Apple user, as their commitment to accessibility for the sight impaired has made their OS a dream to use. In writing my essays, I employ a variety of programmes including Text2SpeechPro, Blogo, Narrator, Dictation, Notability, and my current favourite Wrise.
Benedictine monastery, Mission, Memorial of St Thomas More (Jne 22, 2015)
Butchart Gardens, Vancouver Island, Feast of St Joseph the Worker (May 1, 2015)
I am a passionate harpist, with a repertoire of Celtic, medieval, and hymns. I perform occasionally at my church.
I have a tremendous spiritual affection and soulful devotion for St Thérèse, my patron saint, and to whom I offer the ikebana of my heart.
“What could be more convincing, moreover, than the gesture of laying one’s cards face up on the table?” — Jacques Lacan
Aoife is a slur.
https://aoifeschatology.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/aoifes-abridged-cv9.pdf