Department Of Homeland Security Memo Summary

On the night of October 19th, I attended an event co sponsored by the Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies department and the Franklin Humanities institute at Duke. Doctor Nicholas L. Clarkson joined us to inspire a discussion about the intersection between biopolitics, identity, citizenship and nationalism. To begin, Dr. Clarkson discussed the 2003 Department of Homeland Security memo signaling security personnel to be alert for terrorist who concealed weapons under women’s clothing. The publishing of this memo would foreshadow the eventual linkage of transgendered people with terror/terrorism. A central theme to Clarkson's talk was the misrepresentation and visibility factors of transgendered people in contemporary society. Clarkson argues that popular culture has unjustly assumed that with icons such as Laverne Cox and Amanda, violence against trans people has stopped. …show more content…
Clarkson explains this point by analyzing the treatment of transgender people similar to that of terrorists. Because trans people threaten the gender binary, and are seen as deceptive, criminal,and concealing, America has been forced to incorporate this element into its security imaginary. The link of terror and transgenders is not limited to the scope of nationalism, but further reaches to the U.S’s effort of counterterrorism and treats trans individuals and symbols of threat. Clarkson asserts that the U.S’s ignorance of transgender issues has given it power to justify institutional negligence (i.e medial control, employer laws..etc). The politicization of gender has contributed to the growth of nationalism because it has forced a conversation about identity