Em Cousens (they/she) is Lecturer in the History of Gender and Sexuality at Birkbeck, University of London. They have a PhD in Philosophy from Oxford Brookes and received their MA and BA from the University of Oxford.
Em has held a research grant from the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust for their project Second Wave Trans Feminisms in Print, which explores the contributions to feminist philosophy of trans individuals writing in print culture between 1960 and 1980.
Emily is the author of Trans Feminist Epistemologies in the US Second Wave (Palgrave, 2023), the first book to explore the philosophical and intellectual contributions of trans individuals in the 1970s. Arguing that the canon of second wave feminism needs to be expanded to include the conversations taking place in print, Trans Feminist Epistemologies in the US Second Wave highlights the non-binary perspectives of sex and gender that were being articulated in trans community publications, underground feminist print publications, and in the more well-known arguments of radical feminists including Andrea Dworkin.
Em has written the following recent articles:
- Androgyny in the Archives: 1970s trans and feminist encounters with the promise and politics of non-binary
- Virginia Prince, Robert Stoller and the Trans Feminist History of the Sex/Gender Distinction
- Entering the Archive of Second-Wave Trans Feminist Print Culture: The Journal of Male Feminism
- Feeling Attached to Norms: Beyond Repression and Resistance? An Encounter Between Trans- and Postcolonial Feminist Perspectives (with Dr Hasret Cetinkaya)
They are currently working on the following book projects:
Reclaiming Second Wave Feminism: a reconsideration of second wave feminism and how grassroots trans, lesbian, Black, Chicana and radical feminist activisim and theorising in the period can reinvigarate an accessible, intersectional, and urgent understanding of liberation today. Drawing on archive materials, including different feminist groups’ print cultures, manifestoes and speeches it shines a light on the lesser known histories and figures of second wave feminist radicalism, demonstrating their appeal for a mainstream audience. Essentially, it argues that – at it’s most radical and relevant- second wave feminism was motivated by a civil rights inspired impulse to overhaul structures of patriarchy, imperialism, capitalism, racism and binary gender in the name of a fluid, anti-colonial, non-hierachical, ecologically minded future. It shows how in many cases, these visions also led to bitter infighting and divisions within the movement around priority and strategy. Yet many of the ideals and insights are worth reconsidering, reanimating and revitalising today!
Emily is currently working on the following articles
- Beyond Bigenderism: Second wave trans feminist conceptualisations of “sexism”
- Ethical and Political Considerations in Consulting Trans Community Print Culture as Feminist Theory
Emily’s next book project is on Virginia Prince. It will weave philosophical analysis of Prince’s Virgin Views columns in her bimonthly journal Transvestia (1960-1980), with oral histories of those who knew her. A combination of biography, trans history and feminist philosophy, the book argues that Prince is an understudied and undertheorised influence on the trajectories of trans community, feminist intellectual knowledge production and sexology. It presents her as a highly ambivalent, complicated, yet important figure in trans and feminist intellectual and political developments.
Emily Cousens 