UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — While conducting research in recent years, Hil Malatino, associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies (WGSS) and of philosophy and Joyce L. and Douglas S. Sherwin Early Career Professor in the Rock Ethics Institute at Penn State, increasingly came to the realization that a vast trove of archival documents devoted to trans history had yet to be unearthed and analyzed by contemporary scholars.
“I’d be however many linear feet deep into a particular archive, and I would notice just from the wear and tear of the folders and papers that people had only made it that deep into the archive,” Malatino said. “The first few linear feet would be well perused, and then people ran out of time or funding and had to leave. I got to thinking, ‘Well, this is a situation that a lot of researchers in trans studies find themselves in.’”
That insight eventually led Malatino to conceive the project, “Widening the Arc of Trans History: Archival Research for Public Storytelling,” which recently received a $500,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Currently, Malatino and two co-directors, Sam C. Tenorio, assistant professor of WGSS and of African American studies at Penn State, and Myrl Beam, associate professor and chair of the WGSS Department at Macalester College, are in the process of selecting a cohort of eight to 10 early career trans studies scholars to collaborate with them on the three-year project.
The grant will provide the team with ample research time in a few of the most extensive trans archival sites in the United States and Canada, while also allowing the early career academics access to a broad mentorship network that extends beyond their home institutions. That work, Malatino said, will ultimately produce numerous books, journal articles and other projects devoted to advancing the scope of trans history.
“There is no shortage of trans or trans-adjacent archival material, but there is definitively a shortage of time and research support for early career trans studies scholars in the humanities interested in doing extensive archivally based scholarship,” Malatino said. “The issue is one of access and mentorship, rather than scarcity of material. While significant moves have been made to democratize access, it remains the case that most material is only viewable in person.”
In June, the group will travel to the University of Victoria in British Columbia to conduct two weeks of research in its Transgender Archives, which includes the archives of Reed Erickson, a transgender businessman and philanthropist who was a prominent trans rights activist during the second half of the 20th century.
The team will spend four hours a day doing solo archival research, then get together during the second half of the day for workshops on topics including publishing, archival methodology and trans history, according to Malatino.
“We’ll also do some collective and solo writing exercises, because one of the aims of the grant is not just to give people time in the archives, but to help them learn to effectively translate their research for popular audiences,” he said.
Malatino intends to use the time to conduct further research for his current book project on Erickson.
“What I’m excited about is that there are tons of boxes of depositions and legal files related to Reed Erickson’s life — he was a very litigious person,” Malatino said. “I’m trying to think about the role he played in the development of trans medicine in the mid-20th century and how that was related to questions around his investment in New Age spirituality. He’s a complicated and interesting figure, and I’m trying to think about how the cultural scene of the 1960s and 1970s informed how he understood the politics and even the spirituality he associated with being trans. As for the rest of the cohort, it’s hard for me to say what they’ll be most interested in, but I know that the archives in Victoria have been collecting a lot of material in recent years that not a lot of scholars have had a chance to access.”
The researchers will travel to another to-be-determined archive for the second year of the grant. During the third year, they’ll present their work at a symposium held at Penn State.
Malatino said he’s beyond grateful to the Mellon Foundation for supporting the project’s goals.
“I’ve had wonderful mentors over the course of my career, and I’m excited to be in a position now where I have tenure and access to funds that this grant has enabled, and I can just pull in a team of folks that really actively support an emergent generation of trans scholars,” he said. “I’m really excited to see the field of applicants that we have and to select the cohort. And I’m so excited to meet them and see the work that emerges from the project. I want more people to have more time to devote to trans history.”