Jamey Jesperson

Bio

Jamey is a PhD student in History and the Cultural, Social, and Political Thought program at the University of Victoria. She specialises in trans and Two-Spirit histories, Indigenous and settler colonial studies, and the history of the British and Spanish empires in the North American west. Her doctoral dissertation mixes traditional archival research and Indigenous “story-work” methodology to examine the colonial suppression of trans Indigenous traditions in the Pacific Northwest from contact to confederation (1795-1871).

Awards & Honours

2021 Rees Davies Prize for best M.A. Dissertation in the UK (Royal Historical Society)
2016 Outstanding B.A. Thesis Award (The New School)
2016 David S. Woods Humanitarian Award (The New School)

Affiliations

UVic Chair in Transgender Studies, Committee Member
UVic Graduate History Review, Co-Editor

Publications

Jesperson, Jamey. “[Book Review] Female Husbands: A Trans History, Jen Manion.” Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal 17, no. 2 (expected Fall 2023).

Gust, Onni and Jamey Jesperson. “History Beyond the Gender Binary.” In The Oxford Handbook of LGBTQ History, edited by Howard Chiang and Dominic Janes. Oxford: Oxford University Press (expected Spring 2023).

Jesperson, Jamey and Saylesh Wesley. “‘Waking to Dream’: The Life Stories of Saylesh Wesley, Trans Stó:lō Elder-to-Be.” Stó:lō Library & Archives. 2022. https://web.uvic.ca/stolo/pdf/Jesperson_Saylesh.pdf.

Jesperson, Jamey. “Settler TransNationalism: The Colonial Politics of White Trans Passing on Stolen Land.” Spectator 42, no. 1 (Spring 2022): 32-43.

Jesperson, Jamey. “Honouring Trans Lives, Historicising Trans Death.” History Workshop. November 20, 2020. https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/honouring-trans-lives-historicising-trans-death/.

The New York City Stands with Standing Rock Collective. “#NoDAPL Syllabus Project: The New York City Stands with Standing Rock Collective.” In Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement, edited by Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon, 301-04. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019.

Conferences & Lectures (selected)

“Transmisogyny in the Colonial Archive: ‘Re-Membering’ Transfeminine Life & Death,” University of Oxford, History of the Gendered Body Seminar Series [2022]

“Trans & Intersex Relationships to Hormones: A History,” University of Victoria, “Theorizing Hormones” course [2022]

“Transmisogyny in the Colonial Archive: ‘Re-Membering’ Gendercide in the American West.” Gender & History, Historicising Trans Pasts Colloquium [2022]

“Critical Indigenous Studies x Trans Studies,” Modern Language Association, Early Modern Race x Trans Studies Roundtable [2022]

“Trans History on Stolen Land: Tracing the Settler Colonial Roots of Gender in North America” En-Gender! 2021 Conference [2021]

“Transnationalism as Assemblage: The Colonial Politics of Trans ‘Passing’ in the US,” University of Southern California, First Forum: “Passing” [2020]

“Brutal Binaries: Trans Settler Amnesia & the History of Gender(cide) in Early America,” Wadham College, University of Oxford, Trans & Nonbinary History Workshop [2020]

“Queer Resistance on Stolen Land: Trans* Settler Accountabilities to Decolonization,” University of Toronto, The Work of Settler Colonialism II Symposium [2017]

“Before the Binary: An Origin Story of Colonial Gender Binarism,” Ohio State University, Queer Places, Practices, Lives III Conference [2017]