About
Trans/South is a collaboration between Coastal Carolina University’s Arts and Humanities Global Experience Program (AHGEP) and the Athenaeum Press. Comprised of six undergraduate and two graduate members, we conducted 33 interviews to learn about the Southern trans community in the Carolinas. These interviews were used to create a book and a digital piece that explore the challenges and daily experiences that come with being trans in The South.
This project began as an extension of workshops sponsored by AHGEP discussing the complexities of gender and non-normative identities. We wanted to challenge the assumption that Southern cultural identity and trans identity conflict. To accurately reflect the lives of those interviewed, the stories featured in the project are taken directly from the interviews. Quotes from the interviews not used in the stories are featured in the book on quote pages and in the digital piece Embodied Spaces to show the collective experience of being trans in the South.
None of the members that worked on this project are trans. We studied, researched, learned, and unlearned things about trans issues to provide a more meaningful representation of the people we interviewed. It is our great hope that this project serves to shed light on an overlooked part of our community that is both Southern and trans.
Faces of the Project
Brittany Atkinson
Graduate Assistant
This project has the ability to provide a platform for the voices of marginalized groups.
Read More
Brit Alford
Researcher/Writer
It’s important that we popularize the narratives of the margins, so our society can one day be more inclusive of everybody outside of these constructed social norms. Let’s break them all, and sunbathe unchained in the light.
Read More
Ian Brooking
Editor
My hopes for this body of work is to bring people together and have an open dialogue and discussion about the topics and stories talked about throughout this piece. It is time that we all sit down and get to know one another and understand who we are as well as understand each other.
Read More
Shonte Clement
Digital Lead
Researcher/Writer
I think nowadays people avoid caring about things that “aren’t their business,” but I think we should care to our very limits.
Read More
Olivia Dimatteo
Researcher/Writer
My favorite concept within writing and publishing is that it’s eternal, and I knew these stories had the potential to become history, to live on forever.
Read more
Abby Inman
Graphic Designer
Jackson Martin
Graphic Designer
Tori McCray
Researcher/Writer
My hopes for this project were to spark conversations about gender and sex and why we as a culture and society look down upon those who cannot fit into a box.
Read More
Valerie McLaurin
Lead Graduate Assistant
Editor/Writer
MA Liberal Studies
Stories like these are crucial for us to have a better understanding of ourselves, our local history, and our role in the larger world.
Read More
Joshua Parsons
Researcher/Writer
My bio describes the ways in which this project is important to me and my community. I describe myself and why I wanted to be a part of this project.
Read More
James Pulley
Graphic Designer
Faculty Advisors
- Trisha O’Connor, Director Emeritus, The Athenaeum Press
- Alli Crandell, Director, The Athenaeum Press
- Tripthi Pillai, Faculty Lead and Director of Arts and Humanities Global Experience Program.
- Scott Mann, Production and Design Manager, The Athenaeum Press
About the Athenaeum Press
Visit: theathenaeumpress.com
The Athenaeum Press is a student-driven publishing lab that focuses on telling regional stories in innovative ways. Rather than accepting completed manuscripts for publishing, the press accepts project proposals that will be intensely developed by an interdisciplinary, collaborative group of students and faculty. The Press seeks these proposals from all corners of the community, including non-profit organizations, community members, faculty and students at other institutions. Project initiators, or those that submit project proposals, will extensively collaborate with the Press team to design, build and produce professional-quality content using unique and innovative technologies and media formats.