In 2021, trans folks on Twitterdebatedabout the ethics and usefulness of a venture-funded app suite calledEuphoria, meant to facilitate transitions.While the trans world moved on, one trans guy didnt. Oliver Haimson was fascinated. In 2019, he opened a note on his phone titledTrans Technology and started a running list. It had four initial entries:MyTransHealth, aKickstarter-fundedhealth resource site.Solace,the firstof the Euphoria app suite.Transdr, an appostensiblyfor transgender dating.TransTech Social Enterprises, atechnology skill-buildingcommunity for trans folksIt demonstrated an emerging trend the trans academic was interested in: the intersection between trans people and technology. This was a very new concept, termed by Haimson and three others in apaperpublished that year.The four entries spanned the breadth of what trans technology could be. Trans people were harnessing technology to their unique struggles like access to jobs and medical information.And,technologists were seeing trans people as a new market for products, which the Euphoria app foundercalleda $200 billion industrya numberfrequentlyrepeatedby conservative commentators. Some founders were trans, others were cis. Some entities were profit-oriented, others were not.The information studies student was trying to figure out if this could be an acceptable research area in academic computing spaces. To his delight, it was warmly received so he kept digging.Six years and several papers later, Hamisons list has grown to 100 and has turned from a phone note to a unique body of scholarly work. Now an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information, Hamisons first book, titledTrans Technologies,will be published by MIT Press in February 2025.The Blade read a copy of Hamisons manuscript and chatted with him about the state of tech and trans people. The book is drawn from Hamisons interviews with the creators of all 100 entries on the list.Hamison emphasizes these 100 are just a sample.I kind of could have kept going forever, he says.I really didnt intend to talk to that many people, because usually with these interview studies we talked to about 25 people.At the end of every interview, Hamison asked participants if there was anyone else who may be a good candidatea method called snowball samplingand the project just kept growing.I just had to cut myself off at around 100 interviews, because I wanted to actually move forward with the analysis and writing, he says.Many of those that Hamison interviewed may be recognizable. He spoke to trans pioneerLynn Conwaybefore her death this June. He spoke to trans journalistErin Reed, known for her informed consent clinic and trans risk maps.If the names are not recognizable, the projects often are. While Kai Jackson may not be a trans household name,TransTape, a technology highlighted in the book, is ubiquitous in most transmasculine communities. The same could be said with the many interviewee names associated withTransLifelineorPlume.Transness is about change and transition and crossing over boundaries and borders.Oliver HaimsonThe technologies profiled were diverse, bound by a definition given to Hamison by artist and theoristSandy Stonein an interviewTechnology is anything that extends your agencywhich in turn had been drawn from media scholar Marshall McCluhans 1964 definition of technology as any extension of ourselves. Hamison likes Stones wording better.But ultimately, it was Hamisons job to define the bounds of trans technology. Was it a piece of technology created by a transgender person? Was it a piece of tech used primarily by transgender people? Was it a piece of tech only concerned withtrans things, whatever those are?Drawn from his hours of interviews, Hamison proposed there were two definitions of trans technology.One is a more practical definition, he says.Trans technology is a kind of technology that can help address some of the needs and challenges that trans people and trans communities face. He explains that these technologies address the practical needs of the trans community, ranging from underemployment to lack of access to healthcare to risk of violence.That cant encapsulate everything though.Theres also this more theoretical definition, Hamison says.A lot of the technologies that I talk about in the book are creating these new trans worlds, new possibilities that might not have been possible before thinking about technology and transness together.Transness is about change and transition and crossing over boundaries and borders, says Hamison.There are ways that that could apply to technology.Hamison argues that trans people and transness bring something unique and powerful to the tech space.Technology can open up these new possibilities for trans people, but at the same time, trans identity opens up new possibilities for technology and what it means and what it can do.Asexciting and big and interesting as this world is, Hamison emphasizes that the trans-tech space does not fully represent the diversity of the trans communityIt was pretty clear early on in the study that the people who were creating trans technologies were most likely white, highly educated, [and of a] higher socioeconomic status, he says.Many of the people I interviewed have Ph.D.s or other types of graduate degrees, and that doesnt line up with the broader trans population.Per the2020 Transgender Survey, only 18% of trans people have completed a bachelors degree or higher. This compares to 37.9% of the U.S. population, per theU.S. Censusas of 2021.A lot of these creators, even people who are creating really amazing things, are creating based on their own experiences, Hamison explains. Many trans technologies are more likely to meet the needs of people who are white and highly educated and of higher socioeconomic status.He advocates for a community-based design approach that involves the whole of the trans community. There are some things that are really needed, he says, citing newer efforts to monitor violence, They are important because they are coming from what the community needs, not just the more privileged members of the community.Though many technologies Hamison researched address with the practical issues of healthcare, employment, and safety, others grapple with the complex, varied emotional experiences of the trans community.He cites creator Sasha Winters game jams where videogame developers come together to make and share games under the topics of trans fucking rage and trans joy. Developers created more than 100 unique video games for the jams, many of which are available for free or cheap download.I think this is such a great example of trans technologies more broadly, Hamison reflects,All of us hold this rage and joy together at once.This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.The post From TransTape to risk maps, how trans people use technology appeared first on News Is Out.