SAA Privacy & Confidentiality section is hosting a panel discussion on protecting the privacy of trans people in the archives. Our panelists represent current work being done in academia, both in and out of the archives realm. 

Archivists have long followed ethical best practices that strive to protect individual privacy, but the profession lacks specific guidelines that address the unique and complex privacy vulnerabilities of trans individuals. The discussion will begin with short presentations from each panelist followed by prepared questions. We will end the discussion with 30 minutes of audience questions via chat, moderated by the hosts. This event will not be recorded. 

Event will be on May 5, 2025 at 1:00pm Eastern time.

Panelists:

TJ Billard is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication and, by courtesy, the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University. They are the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Applied Transgender Studies in Chicago and Editor-in-Chief of the Center’s flagship journal, the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies. Dr Billard is the author of Voices for Transgender Equality: Making Change in the Networked Public Sphere (Oxford University Press, 2024) and editor (with Silvio Waisbord) of Public Scholarship in Communication Studies (University of Illinois Press, 2024).

K.J. Rawson is Professor of English and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Northeastern University where he also serves as Director of the Humanities Center. He is the founder and director of the Digital Transgender Archive, an award-winning online repository of trans-related historical materials, and he is the chair of the editorial board of the Homosaurus, an international LGBTQ+ linked data vocabulary. His work is at the intersections of the Digital Humanities and Rhetoric, LGBTQ+, and Feminist Studies. Focusing on archives as key sites of cultural power, Rawson studies the rhetorical work of queer and transgender archival collections in both brick-and-mortar and digital spaces. He has co-edited special issues of Peitho and TSQ and he co-edited Rhetorica in Motion: Feminist Rhetorical Methods and Methodologies (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010). Rawson’s scholarship has appeared in The American Archivist, Archivaria, DHQ, Enculturation, Peitho, Present Tense, QED, RSQ, TSQ, and several edited collections.

Lara Wilson is Director of Special Collections and University Archivist at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, CA.  The University of Victoria’s Transgender Archives collections located in Special Collections & University Archives comprise the largest Trans + collection in the world of rare print and archival materials: over 530 linear feet dating back 120 + years, in 15 languages from 23 countries on six continents. Wilson’s scholarship has appeared in American Archivist, American Libraries, Archivaria, Archive Journal, and Canadian Issues. Wilson is President of the Friends of the British Columbia Archives, and is past chairperson of the Canadian Council of Archives.

Please share widely with your contacts! If you would like to submit an anonymous question of the panelists in advance please use this form.