Carla A. Pfeffer is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina. Pfeffer’s research exists at the intersection of sociological inquiry into contemporary families, sex, gender, and bodies. Her research on cisgender (non-transgender) women’s partnerships with transgender men has been published in a number of journals, including the American Journal of Sociology; the Journal of Marriage and Family; Gender & Society; and the Journal of Lesbian Studies. Pfeffer’s book on the topic, Queering Families: The Postmodern Partnerships of Cisgender Women and Transgender Men (Oxford University Press), is forthcoming later this year.
Laurel Westbrook is a Professor of Sociology at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. An expert in the area of transgender studies, Westbrook has researched how cisgender (non-transgender) people respond to individuals who are transgender. “In doing that research, I have found that understandings of gender are changing from a purely biological understanding to a belief that self-identity also matters when deciding what gender someone is,” she said. Some of her relevant publications include “Doing Gender, Determining Gender: Transgender People, Gender Panics, and the Maintenance of the Sex/Gender/Sexuality System” in Gender & Society, “Bathroom Battlegrounds and Penis Panics” in Contexts, and “Doing Gender, Doing Heteronormativity: ‘Gender Normals,’ Transgender People, and the Social Maintenance of Heterosexuality,” in Gender & Society.
Elroi Windsor is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminal Studies at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Windsor specializes in gender and sexuality, the body and embodiment, and medical sociology, and has done research on transgender and cisgender (non-transgender) experiences with surgical body modification. Some of Windsor’s relevant work includes “The Sexual Habitus of Transgender Men: Negotiating Sexuality Through Gender” in the Journal of Homosexuality and “Golden Ticket Therapy: Stigma Management Among Trans Men,” forthcoming later this year in the International Handbook of Transsexuality and Mental Health (Routledge).