This roundtable offers a transdisciplinary discussion, reflecting on the genealogy of, current conversations and tensions within, and access to Queer and Trans (QT) Filipinx Studies. The members of this panel, composed of community members, graduate students, and early-career professors across the humanities and social sciences, confront this year’s theme of “Asian American Studies in the 2020s” by attempting to situate QT Filipinx Studies within the broader conversation of “belonging” within/out and across academic disciplines. The panel offers the following provocations: What entanglements exist between (trans)disciplinary formations, queer and trans [Filipinx] studies and livelihood, and the production of knowledge within and beyond academia? How does QT Filipinx thought speak to the ongoing legacies of, and struggles against, colonial racial capitalism? What does it mean for QT Filipinx Studies to claim a “home” within Asian American Studies, and how will we know when we have “arrived?”
Emphasizing the importance of community dialogue, we invite the audience to engage in these provocations by sharing their thoughts and experiences, regardless of institutional or departmental affiliations. By expanding the scope of this roundtable beyond the panel itself, we hope to continue these conversations after the conference’s conclusion. The panel envisions this session to serve as an initial gathering place for community members, both within and beyond the academy, and ultimately, hopes to engage those interested in the sustained effort necessary to build out spaces for Critical Queer and Trans Filipinx Studies.