HSS: Toward a Sociological Theory of Trans Value: Emergent Patterns of Inclusion in a Globalized Workplace

Abstract:

This talk examines how the incorporation of transgender subjects in the workplace produces new forms of value and exploitation. In contrast to studies about the exclusion of transgender subjects from the labor force, this study reveals how their patterned workplace inclusion –– often celebrated as a success of contemporary transgender social movements –– goes hand in hand with neoliberal labor relations, the making of the entrepreneurial self, and global capital's ongoing adaptation to new forms of identity and difference. These theoretical claims are based on 41 interviews with transgender subjects employed in the global outsourcing industry in the Philippines.