Interview of Andrea Long Chu

Andrea Long Chu is an emerging trans intellectual, writing on the politics of gender and desire. In this interview she recounts her growing up to a devoted Christian family in North Carolina, attending religious school, being a 'geek' and lover of theater, and radicalizing as a feminist, before discovering 'Theory' in her final year at Duke University. There she dived into critical feminist thought, philosophy, and phenomenology, before beginning a PhD program in Comparative Literature at NYU. Chu spends a substantial portion of the interview ruminating on the stifled state of trans studies, the contributions of feminist militant Valerie Solanas, Chu's forthcoming book published by Verso, and the possibilities of theoretical and critical thought on gender. Along the way, she discusses sissy porn, Twitter and much else.