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Attached Advocacy and the Rights of the Trans Child

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2017

Kimberley Ens Manning
Kimberley Ens Manning*
Affiliation:
Concordia University
*
Department of Political Science, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd West, Montreal QC, H3G 1M8, email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Over the past five years transgender children and their parents have emerged as visible actors in public discussions about the rights of transgender people in Canada. In this article, I track the work of emotions in parent advocacy, showing how the enactment of filial (family) ties sheds new light on the gendered relationship between intimacy and political practice. I argue that an affective shift in parenting has opened up space for some cisgender parents to emerge as political actors in trans advocacy work. The affective politics of parent advocacy nonetheless operates through dominant frames of gendered, classed and racialized normativity, limiting both who can become a parent advocate and potentially narrowing the focus of the struggle.

Résumé

Au cours des cinq derniéres années, les enfants transgenres et leurs parents sont apparus comme des acteurs visibles dans les débats publics sur les droits des personnes transgenres au Canada. Dans cet article, je retrace le travail émotionnel que comporte la sensibilisation parentale en montrant comment le resserrement des liens filiaux (familiaux) apporte un éclairage nouveau sur la relation genrée entre intimité et pratique politique. Je soutiens qu'une évolution de la parentalité a ouvert un espace permettant á un nombre de parents cisgenres de s'affirmer comme des acteurs politiques dans le travail de sensibilisation trans'. La politique affective de la sensibilisation parentale fonctionne néanmoins au travers de modéles dominants de normativité de genre, de classe et de race, limitant á la fois le nombre de ceux qui peuvent se porter á la défense des parents et rétrécissant potentiellement l'objet du combat.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 50 , Special Issue 2: Finding Feminism , June 2017 , pp. 579 - 595
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2017 

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