The first Early Modern Trans Studies conference was held in April, 2019 at Bryn Mawr College (led by Colby Gordon who co-organized with Simone Chess and Will Fisher) conceived as a chance for the contributors to the special issue of the Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies on “Early Modern Trans Studies” to share their work with one another in advance of publication. The thirteen contributors were joined by a handful of friends and fellow-travelers presenting work on topics ranging from Ottoman eunuchs, the late careers of boy actors, and early modern “trans” words like “transfisticate” to prodigies, playable manuscripts, and Renaissance single life.

Whereas the first conference was, all in all, a smallish affair, the second was an event. Delayed by the pandemic until November, 2022, the second Early Modern Trans Studies conference (also at Bryn Mawr, co-organized by Colby Gordon and Simone Chess) took place after the publication of the special issue had begun reshaping the field of early modern gender and sexuality studies. Over the course of three days in front of a packed house, speakers at every level of the profession—including many trans scholars—shared their work on Aniseed Water Robin, Shakespeare in pulpy midcentury drag magazines, Leo Africanus, crucified hermaphrodites, Milton’s unconvincing cisness, archaeological sexing practices, and an entire panel on Spenser.

In Spring 2023, The Folger Institute sponsored a symposium on Global Early Modern Trans Studies co-organized by Simone Chess, Nick Jones, Will Fisher, Colby Gordon, and Melissa Sanchez. This interdisciplinary conference drew scholars from fields beyond English literary and cultural studies for three days of talks about individual scholarship and what a global approach to premodern trans studies might look like.

Responding to the unusual minimization of drama in the conferences and published work in early modern trans studies more broadly, Simone Chess and Sawyer Kemp organized a conference at Wayne State University in October, 2023 on Early Modern Trans Drama. Noting that in the JEMCS special issue in 2019, there was more or less a 50/50 split between essays that centered performance or dramatic texts and those with nondramatic focus, while at the second EmoTrans conference, things had shifted even more dramatically: out of 18 talks, only 3 were about performance or drama: the rest of that conference was all poetry and circumcision. In the interest of course correction, the EmoTrans Drama conference solicited work that addressed the “Twelfth Night” problem, went beyond the “reveal trap,” considered the “canon conundrum,” and leaned into early modern “drama” in its senses as interpersonal drama, scandal, conspiracy, and gossip.

In Fall 2024, the University of Michigan will host a workshop-style conference on “Early Modern Trans Sexualities” organized by Valerie Traub, Simone Chess, Joseph Gamble, Colby Gordon, and Sawyer Kemp. The event will feature closed workshop sessions for invited participants, but will include an open roundtable on “New Works, New Questions” featuring authors of recent publications in the field, a graduate student lunch, and an open syllabus skill-share pedagogy event. In January 2025, The Newberry Library will host a one-day workshop on “Trans Archives,” organized by Simone Chess, Colby Gordon, and Sawyer Kemp.  

This third iteration of the Early Modern Trans Studies conference (led by Micah Goodrich who co-organized with Colby Gordon and Simone Chess) invites classicists, medievalists, and late antique scholars to bring premodern trans studies into conversation with early modern trans studies.