Dear Reader,
I'm so pleased to be celebrating a new book this month from a Manuscript Works client (specifically an alum of my Book Proposal Accelerator program in 2022). Dr. Oliver L. Haimson's Trans Technologies is near and dear to my heart, not only because its topic is important for its own sake, but also because I think Oliver's thesis is a great a model for other authors who are trying to figure out how to construct an argument that can not only sustain a whole scholarly book but also make a portable contribution to multiple scholarly fields.
To find out what the thesis of Trans Technologies is, and what it means to try to take your scholarly work public to make a broader impact, keep reading!
Many other Manuscript Works readers and clients also have new books coming out. Keep scrolling after the interview to see them and a selection of resources I offer for scholarly authors who hope to see their books published too someday.
Laura Portwood-Stacer: First, could you explain what the book is about?
Oliver L. Haimson: It is a book about trans technologies, which is a term I define in two ways. First, trans technologies are tools that in some way help or address some of the challenges that trans people and communities are facing. The second definition is more of a theoretical definition, thinking about how technology can embrace change or transition. Technology is creating new possibilities for trans people, but then, when thinking about technology from a trans lens, we can also think about new possibilities for technology itself.
LPS: I’m hosting a workshop next month to help scholarly authors clarify their goals for their books, so I'm curious what you hoped this book would do, when you first set out to write it. Is it a book for tenure? Is it something you hope will make change in the world?
OLH: I am very fortunate that I'm not in a book discipline, so I did not need to write a book for tenure at all. In fact, my tenure vote happened before the book was published, though the book will be good for going up for full professor eventually. However, I guess I'm unlucky as well in a way, because I had to publish articles the entire time I was writing the book.
Why did I want to write a book if not for tenure? I used to work in bookstores throughout my twenties. I never really got much time to read or write during that time period. I remember at this one point being behind the desk as a bookseller, and thinking, “I want to be the person who writes the books, not just the person who sells the books.”
That was a long time ago, and it's taken a long time to get here. I had ideas, but I wasn't sure what those were going to be. When I became a researcher, I realized that I wasn't just going to pull a book out of my head. It had to come from an actual research project. So that's what happened.
Once I became an academic, the first person who really put the idea in my head that I could write a book was Bo Ruberg, who has published a bunch of books. They have been a mentor to me for a number of years, and they were editing a book series at a university press. Bo reached out to me and said, “Hey, I don't know if you've ever thought about a book, but your topic area is a good fit for this series.” That put the idea in my head.
When I started this particular research project a few years ago, I wasn't expecting it to be this big or this extensive. It was one of those projects where I started getting into the data, and it was just so much and so exciting. I didn't want to split it apart in a bunch of different journal articles or a bunch of different conference papers because I felt like there was more that needed to be a longer thread. That's when I started thinking about it as a potential book.
Then, I started analyzing and writing, and all of my friends who are in more humanities disciplines were like, “Why are you writing a book when you don't have to? You're so excited about it, what's going on?”
At that point, it felt like it was something I needed to do, and it was the right time to do it.
LPS: Let’s dig into what was exciting about it. Who do you have in mind that you want this book to reach?
OLH: I really don't want it to just be for academics, although it's at a price point where I think it’s mostly going to be academics purchasing it. But it will also be accessible for free on the MIT Press website, which is great. That's really important to me, because that means that people who are not academics can also read it. I would be really excited if a lot of people from trans communities were reading the book because those are the people I interviewed. Those are the people that I've been doing research with for years and years. There's a lot of excitement about technology in trans communities. I hope that they'll find it interesting and as exciting as I did.
I want the book to still be relevant in a number of years when these particular technologies are not still cutting edge. I do know that things will age, and I don't know how they'll age. So in some sense, I do also feel like it's documenting a current moment.
LPS: I often try to tell people that if you have a strong conceptual argument, the specific historical moment becomes a little less critical to maintaining the relevance over time. What takeaways are you hoping people will get from the book?
OLH: I'm at the intersection of human computer interaction (HCI) and trans studies, and I'm actually calling it “trans technology studies.” One of the interesting things that happens when you combine these two very different disciplines, is that in HCI, we often talk about human-centered design processes. What this means is that we (ideally) don't just build a piece of technology. We first figure out what people need from that technology, or what problems there are in the world that could potentially be solved by this technology. Then the point is to involve potential users and community members throughout the entire design process. This is what we aim to do; whether it actually happens in practice is another story.
Eighty percent of the technology creators I interviewed are trans themselves. Often, they are creating something that meets their own needs. As an example, someone in my data set wanted a way to track their hormone shots and get reminders when needed. And so they basically just created this app to do that, which is really cool. This example definitely didn’t follow the human centered design process because it was just one person—or in this case, it was two people who worked together on it—creating technology to meet their own personal needs.
But if you think about the broader needs of trans communities, there are so many other major needs not being met on a daily basis. The problem is that there is a disconnect between the trans population more broadly and the people who have the skills and the resources and the privilege to just create technology whenever they feel like it. And so one of my big arguments is that we really do need a community-based approach, even when the creators themselves are trans. That is the way that we can try to understand what the whole range of needs are. For instance, for trans people of color or low income trans people who may not themselves have the extra time at the end of the workday to just create an app, their needs should still be accounted for. Really, it's about having meaningful involvement from community members in designing trans technology.
LPS: The thing I love about your argument is that it transcends your specific topic. Even people from other kinds of communities that are not trans, but are creating technology to serve their communities, can take some lessons from this. People in activist and mutual aid communities who are not necessarily creating technology, but maybe creating grassroots efforts in other ways could also learn from the principles that you're sharing. There is such a broad takeaway from what could be seen as a very specific book. (This is one reason why I cite your argument as an example in my forthcoming guide to developmental editing for scholarly writers.)
OLH: Yes, that's my hope. I was actually talking with a journalist this morning and she was talking about some similar things happening in sex worker communities. There are so many marginalized communities where the mainstream technologies are just not working for us, and we see this even more right now with Meta deciding that it really doesn't care about being inclusive. It's so important to have these alternatives, these smaller platforms that are built by communities for communities.
LPS: I know that you’re working with a publicist for this book. How did you see a publicist helping you achieve what you want this book to achieve? What was your motivation for working with a publicist?
OLH: One lesson I've valued from the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity has been that you can choose to be a different type academic at different points in your career. Not everyone can be a public academic or someone who's talking to the media all the time, because, especially pre-tenure, you just don't have time for it. Or maybe you're focused on mentoring. Or maybe you're focused on teaching. And so I decided that for this time period when my book is coming out, I'm going to try to be more of a public academic, just for now. I'm going to try to take my expertise and see if I can get it to a more public audience during this moment.
This is not something that I'm used to or especially well trained for. I'm also working with a public speaking coach, especially because I'm doing a lot of book events, too. I want to make sure that I'm really able to communicate things to get these messages out beyond just academia.
I've been talking to a lot of journalists recently about current events like the TikTok ban and the Meta platform policy change and things like that. I'm just taking this point in time to publicly stand up for the ideas behind my book and really spread them around as much as I can. I’m trying to have a bigger voice right now.
My publicist is reaching out to many different press outlets and pitching my work to them. They also connect me with different journalists and prepare me on how to talk to journalists, media outlets, and podcasts.
LPS: That's great. Some academics may have negative opinions about working with a publicist because they see it as "self-promotion," but I want to point out that it’s not always particularly self-serving. It's about getting these impactful ideas out there. You’re investing resources to reach communities that you hope will benefit from your work, which I think is admirable.
Is there anything else you would want an author who's working on their book right now to know?
OLH: My book was on a pretty fast timeline compared to some other ones. But I wanted to also mention that I also did take a pretty big mental health break. There was one semester where I was really struggling, and I just couldn't do it. I did nothing on my book for roughly three or four months. But even when including that time period, it still was able to all happen relatively quickly. What I learned from that is that, even if you're someone like me who just wants everything to go very fast, it's still okay to take a break, even an extended break when you need it. And that's really important to think about. It's not just work life balance. It's also knowing when to take an extended break.
LPS: Thank you for sharing that and for your time talking with me today, Oliver!
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If you’d like to get a copy of Trans Technologies by Oliver Haimson, you can order directly from MIT Press.
Oliver will be donating half of his author royalties to trans BIPOC organizations, including the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit, an LGBTQ center serving trans BIPOC people.
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This newsletter is coming to you from Laura Portwood-Stacer, PhD, professional developmental editor and publishing consultant. I help scholarly writers navigate the book publishing process with more ease and agency.
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