Author Event! Oliver Haimson's "Trans Technologies"

Join us on April 3rd at 6pm as we welcome Oliver Haimson to Providence! Oliver will be reading from and discussing his latest book, Trans Technologies (2025). Joining Oliver, Nikko Stevens will serve as a moderator.

About the book:

How technology creates new possibilities for transgender people, and how trans experiences, in turn, create new possibilities for technology.

Mainstream technologies often exclude or marginalize transgender users. Trans Technologies describes what happens when trans people take technology design into their own hands. Oliver L. Haimson, whose research into gender transition and technology has defined this area of study, draws on transgender studies and his own in-depth interviews with more than 100 creators of technology—including apps, games, health resources, extended reality systems, and supplies designed to address challenges trans people face—to explain what trans technology is and to explore its present possibilities and limitations, as well as its future prospects.

Haimson surveys the landscape of trans technologies to reveal the design processes that brought these technologies to life, and to show how trans people often must rely on community, technology, and the combination of the two to meet their basic needs and challenges. His work not only identifies the role of trans technology in caring for individuals within the trans community but also shows how trans technology creation empowers some trans people to create their own tools for navigating the world. Articulating which trans needs and challenges are currently being addressed by technology and which still need to be addressed; describing how trans technology creators are accomplishing this work; examining how privilege, race, and access to resources impact which trans technologies are built and who may be left out; and highlighting new areas of innovation to be explored, Trans Technologies opens the way to meaningful social change.

About the author:

Oliver Haimson is an Assistant Professor at University of Michigan School of Information, author of Trans Technologies (MIT Press 2025), and a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award. He conducts social computing research focused on envisioning and designing trans technologies, social media content moderation and marginalized populations, and changing identities online during life transitions.

About the moderator:

Nikko Stevens is a critical technology researcher, software engineer, and open-source contributor. In their work, they demonstrate how our social ideologies (like how we think about race or gender) impact the software systems that we build. Their current project, *Abolitionist Engineering*, connects prison abolition to contemporary software practices. Stevens is a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, and will begin as Assistant Professor of Statistical and Data Sciences at Smith College in the fall.

Signed copies of Trans Technologies will be available for purchase.