Plausible Deniability: Audio Presentation

Comics, Embodiment Fantasies and the Rhetorical Fetishization of Transness

Foreword: This in an audiorecording of a presentation, which was delivered on 3/5/26 at the 2026 Conference on College Composition and Communication. The transcript and visuals for this talk can be found here.

Content Warning: This article discusses kink and sex frankly, but in an entirely non-explicit way.

Art © 2026 by Grumpy_TG. Used with permission.

Afterword: Stained Glass Woman will be going back on break for a while after this article. Gotta finish up revisions on my scholarly book! For updates about when I’ll be back, check my Bluesky, @impossiblephd.bsky.social, or Mastodon, @Impossible_PhD.hachyderm.io!

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Works Cited

Ahmed, S (2006). Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Duke UP.

Bragman, W. (2026). Experts Warn U.S. in Early Stages of Genocide Against Trans Americans. The Lemkin Institute.

Cox, M. B. (2019). Working Closets: Mapping Queer Professional Discourses and Why Professional Communication Studies Need Queer Rhetorics. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 33(1), 1–25.

Gill-Peterson, J. (2024). A Short History of Trans Misogyny.. Verso.

Holmes, Andrew Gary Darwin. “Researcher Positionality - A Consideration of Its Influence and Place in Qualitative Research - A New Researcher Guide.” Shanlax International Journal of Education, vol. 8, no. 4, 2020, pp. 1-10.

Jones, N. N. (2016). The Technical Communicator as Advocate: Integrating a Social Justice Approach in Technical Communication. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 46(3), 342-361.

Phipps, K (2023). Plight of the Transbian. Medium.

Reed, N (2012). The Null HypotheCis. Freethoughtblogs.

Serano, J. (2020). Autogynephilia: A scientific review, feminist analysis, and alternative ‘embodiment fantasies’ model. The Sociological Review, 68(4), 763–778

Sparby, D (2023). Memetic Rhetorics. University of Michigan Press.