que(e)ry

The que(e)ry collective comprises six members of the Columbia University undergraduate community. With the support of the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies, qu(e)ery published this issue in 2018. In the article "Diagnostic Confinement: Tracking the Imposition of Gender Norms in Transgender Diagnostic Standards," author Anja Chivukula analyzes how transgender identities disrupt gender-sex-performance paradigms using Judith Butler's assertion that "gender identity … is instituted…through a stylized repitition of acts." She then examines the way in which diagnostic standards put forth by Harry Benjamin, the World Health Organization, and the DSM impose rigid gender norms on transgender patients, arguing that transgender patients may feel the need to employ performative tactics so that medical treatment is not withheld by doctors; thus, these diagnostic standards constitute a form of normative violence. In "Queer Comradeship; or, Fielding the Natural," Aaron Su offers his thoughts on the role of tongzhi—a Chinese word meaning both "comrade" and "queer—" in post-socialist China. Isaac Jean-François' piece, "Haiti and Agential Trajectories of the Dispossessed," considers the tension between dispossession and agency of the individual in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake of 2010. He critiques the classic depiction of the "dispossessed Haitian in peril"; this portrayal strips Haiti of its agency, while allowing neo-colonial entities (such as NGOs and hegemonic Western nations) to further their own aims under the guise of delivering humanitarian aid to a nation ostensibly mired in its own ineptitude. In the article "Trans-Magic," Kiran Zelbo explicates the relationship between "queerness," and Marcel Mauss' concept of mana, or magic; both embody the contradiction of simultaneously being "abstract and expansive," and in some ways, specific and concrete. Through interviews with several transgender and non-binary Columbia students, Zelbo examines concepts associated with queerness, such as boundary-crossing, pronouns, and voice-performance, through the lens of magic. The journal also contains art pieces by various creators. – Alekhya