Transtopia: Gender Transgression in the Sinophone World

Howard Chiang, PhD (he/him) holds the Lai Ho & Wu Cho-Liu Endowed Chair in Taiwan Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is also Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, Director of the Center for Taiwan Studies, and Affiliated Faculty of History and Feminist Studies. He is the author of After Eunuchs: Science, Medicine, and the Transformation of Sex in Modern China (Columbia University Press, 2018) and Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific (Columbia University Press, 2021). He is current completing a book on the history of psychoanalysis and transcultural reasoning in the Sinophone Pacific. Between 2019 and 2022, he served as the Founding Chair of the Society of Sinophone Studies.

Aries Liao, PhD, LCSW (she/her) is a psychotherapist with extensive experience in clinical, group and community social work. She received her PhD in Social Welfare and Masters in Social Work from Yeshiva University, and is a trained psychoanalyst and supervisor from the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology.

She has co-founded Q-WAVE and The Asian Pride Project. She also served on the executive board of The National Queer Asian and Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), and the executive steering committee of PFLAG NYC-API Rainbow Parents; involved in development of organizational vision and strategies, and the facilitation of workshops and training.

Aries is committed to community building and gender, racial, disability and economic justice. She has been passionately involved in the advocacy and education work for the past 20 years.