Amy Marvin
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amymarvin.bsky.social
Amy Marvin
@amymarvin.bsky.social
1.3K followers 660 following 650 posts
fascinating philosopher & lgbtq studies prof / writing a book on ruinous obsessions with trans people (under contract w/ Oxford University Press)

essays: https://philpeople.org/profiles/amy-marvin/
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amymarvin.bsky.social
Amy Marvin @amymarvin.bsky.social · Jun 18
New essay: "Atmospheres of Conversion" - We argue that trans films (The People's Joker & I Saw the TV Glow) frame anti-trans conversion as central to cis society and that creating trans art spaces is one way to fight back! Written with @echosequence.space Preprint here: philpapers.org/rec/MARAOC-16
Atmospheres of Conversion: Trans Cinema, Tactics, and t4t Sociality Amy Marvin and Isobel Bess Author preprint. Forthcoming in philoSOPHIA: A Journal of Transcontinental Feminism. Please cite the final published version when available. Abstract: This essay draws from recent trans films to map a social atmosphere of anti-trans conversion beyond the discrete set of social, medical, and psychiatric practices normally discussed in this context. To explain this phenomenon, we introduce a permeating organizational maxim of cis society we refer to as the Silenic imperative: that it is best to not live as trans, and second best to cease living as trans as soon as possible. The People’s Joker and I Saw the TV Glow depict this permeating atmosphere of conversion within mass culture, constituted by and constitutive of spaces in which trans existence is systematically threatened and repressed. By staging atmospheres of conversion, both films likewise stage tactics of trans resistance that open new spaces for trans sociality. We consider how these films frame attempts to navigate and resist atmospheres of conversion, considering trans-for-trans (t4t) sociality as a site of both escape and failure. We conclude by considering trans cinema itself as a site of tactics against atmospheres of anti-trans conversion in our own world and as a source for life-sustaining sociality. This is especially important within the contemporary atmosphere of cis society and its attempts to suffuse and snuff out all trans life. Keywords: Atmospheres; Conversion Therapy; Queer and Trans Film; Practice Theory; t4t “This isn’t the Midnight Realm, Maddy, it’s just the suburbs.” -Owen, I Saw the TV Glow
amymarvin.bsky.social
Meeting with a publisher tomorrow at NWSA to discuss Book Two 😈
November 14, 2025 at 1:18 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
Wow an Elixr at Philly airport, this really is the future
November 14, 2025 at 1:15 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
I’ll be at NWSA Friday evening, Saturday, and Sunday! Presenting on the Examining Anti-Trans Social Movements panel at 1pm this Saturday.
November 13, 2025 at 11:12 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
Okay who was the person with the line “Gender Studies is about trans men explaining trans women to cis women,” I want to properly cite this quip.
November 13, 2025 at 5:45 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
Morning view from my office. Guess this is my new “sunny weather”
College campus in the snow with pathways, a stone building, and fall trees
November 11, 2025 at 1:22 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
What if Cuomo tries to primary Schumer
November 10, 2025 at 4:07 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
Not sure if it’s a good idea to go to NWSA this week and risk not having a flight back
November 9, 2025 at 5:20 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
Excited that Google AI has decided to memorialize my status as a quiz show host
Text from Google AI: Academic and writer: Marvin holds a PhD in feminist philosophy and has published in journals such as Transgender Studies Quarterly, Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, and Hypatia. Her poetry has appeared in Prolit, Wax Nine, and Protean. Social media presence: She is active on Twitter as @amyrmarv. Cultural commentary: She gained wider recognition for a viral meme she created that used an anime image to comment on the backlash against transgender visibility. Other work: Marvin has held various jobs, including serving as an adjunct professor, librarian, and quiz show host.
November 8, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Reposted by Amy Marvin
echosequence.space
three years since I released this piece after Fernand Deligny. I was commissioned by Poetry Project to compose two tracks on the theme of Utopian R&D, to be played during poetic free writing sessions. it felt appropriate to the invoke the Arachnean.

isobelbess.bandcamp.com/album/wander...
Wander Lines, by (is)
2 track album
isobelbess.bandcamp.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Reposted by Amy Marvin
floresophize.bsky.social
Want to read some rad queer philosophy, in the form of short snazzy personal essays? Check out the most recent issue of the APA Studies in LGBTQ+ Philosophy, cheekily titled "Make philosophy queer again!" which I've edited! 1/
www.apaonline.org
October 23, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Reposted by Amy Marvin
not.dingherself.com
So thrilled & grateful to be part of this! My essay, “The Cisgender Tipping Point,” subjects being cisgender to the kind of scrutiny often confronted by trans people. What do we know gender to be if we treat trans ways of doing gender as paradigmatic? (Spoiler: The answer is not gender identity.)
Screenshot of the start of my essay, “The Cisgender Tipping Point”: “Cis people puzzle me. Please don’t get me wrong—my feminism most definitely includes cis people. I believe that justice requires us to treat cis people’s sincere gender avowals as if they are legitimate. I defend cis people’s freedom to prefer names and pronouns that reflect their identification with their genital status even though this regularly weirds out trans people. I have no problem with cis people peeing where they like even though this poses real safety risks to trans people in general and trans women of color in particular. Hell, I can even get on board with the inclusion of cis athletes even though they dominate every single Olympic sport out there thanks to what I can only speculate is a biological advantage. Whatever allyship demands of me I’m here for it. “No, when I say that cis people are so puzzling, I’m talking about them as a philosophical problem: What gives cis people the genders they claim to have? What do cis people mean that they are cis? What is it like to have a cisgender identity? Why do so many teens identify as cis now? Are cissexuals products of some sort of gender ideology—cissexualism, let’s say? Is cissexualism a diagnosable mental disorder? Do we want it to be? Are cis people just whining for attention because they are jealous of us? Could they be a counterexample to our metaphysics of gender? …
October 23, 2025 at 8:53 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
Resharing my essay on philosophy & Gendertrash from Hell in light of the reissue! blog.apaonline.org/2024/10/16/p...
November 6, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Amy Marvin
echosequence.space
might be working on a book with @amymarvin.bsky.social about trans cinema as it relates to the production of trans space, which expands on this essay to talk about other films and other ideas

philarchive.org/rec/MARAOC-16
Amy Marvin & Isobel Bess, Atmospheres of Conversion: Trans Cinema, Tactics, and t4t Sociality (Author Preprint) - PhilArchive
This essay draws from recent trans films to map a social atmosphere of anti-trans conversion beyond the discrete set of social, medical, and psychiatric practices normally discussed in this context. T...
philarchive.org
November 6, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Amy Marvin
echosequence.space
transgender for everypony
November 5, 2025 at 5:18 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
This would be a great day for someone who happens to be wrapping up a book about transphobic obsession as a kind of self-harm
November 5, 2025 at 5:18 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
Pretty sure I saw this sign at Ollie’s
onestpress.onestnetwork.com Olga Nesterova @onestpress.onestnetwork.com · 9d
New sign outside the Oval Office..
November 5, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Amy Marvin
ginagwenffrewi.bsky.social
My critical analysis of the anti-trans astroturf group, the LGB Alliance, has just been published in the special edition of the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies. I recommend the whole special edition - it's open access, no pay wall.
bulletin.appliedtransstudies.org/article/4/1-...
Astro-TERFs - Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies
In the backlash against trans rights in the UK since the late 2010s, the LGB Alliance has been implicated as a leading exponent of the new moral panic, typified by its newspaper campaign against GRA r...
bulletin.appliedtransstudies.org
November 4, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Reposted by Amy Marvin
littlepuss.net
Today is the LAUNCH DAY for
‼️GENDERTRASH FROM HELL ‼️
The zine that redefined transsexual culture forever

THAT'S RIGHT: GENDERTRASH IS NOW LEGALLY AVAILABLE WITHOUT AGE RESTRICTIONS

Get it from our website, or from all good bookstores. You can even ask your library to order it!

💥📕💏🫦💥
Gendertrash From Hell - ALL-NEW — LittlePuss Press
Long-lost and all-new zines revealing the secret history of contemporary transgender culture
www.littlepuss.net
November 4, 2025 at 4:24 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
I’ll forgive Brianna Wu if she manages to finally shut up
November 1, 2025 at 10:07 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
Finally made it to Act 3 in Silksong
November 1, 2025 at 2:55 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
They’ll absolutely move towards doing this with adult care if it’s allowed to happen
npr.org NPR @npr.org · 15d
The White House plans to bar hospitals that treat transgender children and youth from getting any Medicare and Medicaid payments. The move would affect trans youth who have private insurance, too. n.pr/4qFa1mY
Trump pushes an end to medical care for transgender youth nationally
The White House plans to bar hospitals that treat transgender children and youth from getting any Medicare and Medicaid payments. The move would affect trans youth who have private insurance, too.
n.pr
October 30, 2025 at 9:35 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
Excited that the local library had this one on display for Halloween while I’m in the middle of planning for a Queer & Trans Fiction class
Black Flame by Gretchen Felker-Martin
October 30, 2025 at 9:28 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
Brought to life from the brink of total exhaustion this morning by the radio playing Scatman
October 30, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Reposted by Amy Marvin
chris-brighton.bsky.social
This is a great article by Alex Adamson for Philosophy and Global Affairs that bridges trans studies, intersex studies, and decolonial feminism.

#AcademicSky #AcademicResearch #TransStudies #IntersexStudies #DecolonialStudies #PhilSky #GenderSky #Wynter #Lugones #TransSky

doi.org/10.5840%2Fpg...
"Beyond the Coloniality of Gender: María Lugones, Sylvia Wynter, Decolonial Feminism, and Trans and Intersex Liberation," by Alex Adamson. Abstract: This article explores Sylvia Wynter’s analysis of gender as a category differentially applied across the global color line and María Lugones’ account of the coloniality of gender. While Wynter’s and Lugones’s work offer consequential insights for queer, trans, and intersex studies and activism, they have deliberately engaged these particular discourses and histories of struggle in limited ways. Wyn- ter analyzes the contradictions of Western feminists’ organizing against female genital cutting in Africa, but she does not link her conclusions to their ramifica- tions for activism against genital cutting on children deemed intersex. Lugones uses the existence of intersex people as a turning point in her critique of Aníbal Quijano when developing her concept of the coloniality of gender, but she does not go further to connect global intersex activism and decolonial feminist struggles. This article explores the work of Wynter and Lugones for their compatibility with trans and intersex studies and activism, and the places where their work can be furthered through insights from trans and intersex studies. It concludes that to move beyond the coloniality of gender requires trans and intersex liberation and that trans and intersex liberation must be understood in a broader decolonial feminist framework. Keywords: decolonial feminism, Sylvia Wynter, María Lugones, trans studies, intersex studies
October 29, 2025 at 10:28 PM
amymarvin.bsky.social
People just don’t know what a joke is anymore, especially Little Giuseppe of Verona, who has deluded himself into thinking my routine about the short barber of Verona has anything to do with him.
October 29, 2025 at 6:03 PM