ABSTRACT
This book applies a framework of ‘trans vitalities’ through an ethnographically anchored exploration of trans coalitional labor and activism in Washington, DC. Specifically, this text considers how trans social justice work at the local level exemplifies why and how the notions of ‘trans community’ or ‘trans rights’ must be reconfigured. Trans vitalities, as a framework developed in this text, functions in three specific ways: 1) to disrupt and rethink what valuable, viable, or quantifiable quality of life looks like; 2) to shift our understandings of community towards ‘coalition’; and 3) as a methodological, theoretical, and application-based set of tools that integrates a radical trans politics and community-based approach towards addressing trans lives. This text functions to explore the framework of trans vitalities through one-on-one interviews, community map-making projects, and an analysis of the DC Trans Needs Assessment survey outcomes.
