Henry S. Rubin (born 1966) is an American sociologist known for work on transsexualism.[1]

Henry S. Rubin
Born1966
NationalityAmerican
OccupationSociologist
EmployerQuincy College
Known forTranssexual studies

Early life and education edit

Rubin earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1988 from University of California, Santa Cruz and a master's degree and Ph.D. in sociology from Brandeis University in 1996.

Career edit

After lecturing at Harvard University from 1996 to 2000, Rubin held one-year assistant professorships at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 2000 and Hamilton College in 2001. He was appointed at Tufts University in the Media & Communications department from 2002-2005, working as a research analyst at Harvard University during that time. Following a one-year position as programs coordinator at Colleges of the Fenway in 2005, Rubin took a position as an instructor at Quincy College in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 2007.

Rubin's work explores the political tensions that emerge from differing worldviews and identities within the LGBT community.[2]

Rubin is known for arguing that the most meaningful division is not between the queer and transsexual communities, but between the transgender and transsexual communities.[3]

He has also explored how the "logic of treatment" is different for trans men and trans women, outlining the now-outdated use of chemical castration on female-to-male people.[4] Rubin is a thought leader in the movement to distance transsexual political interests from those of the transgender movement as that movement becomes more aligned with the queer movement.[5]

References edit

  1. ^ Ryan, Joelle Ruby (September 22, 2004). New millennium trannies: gender-bending, identities, and cultural politics. Feminist Collections: A Quarterly of Women's Studies Resources.
  2. ^ Rubin, Henry (2003). Self-made men: identity and embodiment among transsexual men. Vanderbilt University Press, ISBN 978-0-8265-1435-6
  3. ^ Halberstam, Judith (1998). Female masculinity. Duke University Press, ISBN 978-0-8223-2243-6
  4. ^ Stryker Susan and Stephen Whittle (2006). The transgender studies reader. CRC Press, ISBN 978-0-415-94709-1
  5. ^ Code, Lorraine (2003). Encyclopedia of feminist theories. Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-30885-4