LOS ANGELES — Korra Del Rio has co-authored an essay speaking to her experience as a trans female performer for the non-medical academic journal "TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly" via Duke University Press. She also appears on its cover.
Del Rio and researcher/co-editor Sophie Pezzutto co-authored "Professionalism, Pay and the Production of Pleasure in Trans Porn" for the May 2020 issue of "TSQ," Volume 7, No. 2.
Del Rio expressed excitement about the feature.
"In this special issue on trans pornography, a first for the field, Sophie Pezzutto and co-editor Lynn Comella introduce trans pornography as a valid and important field of research," said Del Rio. "The issue brings into conversation a number of industry voices, placing particular emphasis on providing a platform for performers to talk about their experiences. In addition to appearing on the cover, an article of mine is featured in the issue, co-written with Sophie, highlighting some of the aspects of being a trans porn performer."
"I look forward to this issue bringing awareness about the industry and our work as performers to the field of trans studies," she said.
"TSQ" provides "a high-profile venue for innovative research and scholarship that contest the objectification, pathologization and exoticization of transgender lives," a rep explained. "It publishes interdisciplinary work that explores the diversity of gender, sex, sexuality, embodiment and identity in ways that have not been adequately addressed by feminist and queer scholarship."
The mission of the publication is to "foster a vigorous conversation among scholars, artists, activists and others that examines how 'transgender' comes into play as a category, a process, a social assemblage, an increasingly intelligible gender identity, an identifiable threat to gender normativity and a rubric for understanding the variability and contingency of gender across time, space and cultures," concluded the rep.
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