Henry S. Rubin (born 1966) is an American sociologist known for work on

transsexualism Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including sex reassignment ...

.Ryan, Joelle Ruby (September 22, 2004). New millennium trannies: gender-bending, identities, and cultural politics. ''Feminist Collections: A Quarterly of Women's Studies Resources.''

Early life and education

Rubin earned a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree in 1988 from

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

and a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in sociology from

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

in 1996.

Career

After lecturing at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

from 1996 to 2000, Rubin held one-year assistant professorships at

Clark University Clark University is a private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1887 with a large endowment from its namesake Jonas Gilman Clark, a prominent businessman, Clark was one of the first modern research universities in the ...

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...

, in 2000 and

Hamilton College Hamilton College is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. It was founded as Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and was chartered as Hamilton College in 1812 in honor of inaugural trustee Alexander Hamilton, following ...

in 2001. He was appointed at

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

in the Media & Communications department from 2002-2005, working as a research analyst at

during that time. Following a one-year position as programs coordinator at

Colleges of the Fenway The Colleges of the Fenway (COF) is a consortium of five colleges located in or near the Fenway neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The association promotes collaboration among its member schools to enhance the variety of educational programs; ...

in 2005, Rubin took a position as an instructor at

Quincy College Quincy College (QC) is a public community college in Quincy, Massachusetts. It is an open admission commuter school that offers associate degrees, bachelor degrees, and certificate programs. It was founded in 1958 and enrolls approximately 4,500 ...

Quincy, Massachusetts Quincy ( ) is a coastal U.S. city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the largest city in the county and a part of Greater Boston, Metropolitan Boston as one of Boston's immediate southern suburbs. Its population in 2020 was 1 ...

, in 2007. Rubin's work explores the political tensions that emerge from differing worldviews and identities within the

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

community.Rubin, Henry (2003). ''Self-made men: identity and embodiment among transsexual men.'' Vanderbilt University Press, Rubin is known for arguing that the most meaningful division is not between the

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...

and transsexual communities, but between the

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

and transsexual communities.Halberstam, Judith (1998). Female masculinity. Duke University Press, He has also explored how the "logic of treatment" is different for

trans men A trans man is a man who was assigned female at birth. The label of transgender man is not always interchangeable with that of transsexual man, although the two labels are often used in this way. ''Transgender'' is an umbrella term that incl ...

and

trans women A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and so ...

, outlining the now-outdated use of

chemical castration Chemical castration is castration via anaphrodisiac drugs, whether to reduce libido and sexual activity, to treat cancer, or otherwise. Unlike surgical castration, where the gonads are removed through an incision in the body, ...

on female-to-male people.Stryker Susan and Stephen Whittle (2006). ''The transgender studies reader.'' CRC Press, Rubin is a thought leader in the movement to distance transsexual political interests from those of the transgender movement as that movement becomes more aligned with the queer movement.Code, Lorraine (2003). ''Encyclopedia of feminist theories.'' Routledge,

References

1966 births Living people University of California, Santa Cruz alumni Brandeis University alumni Harvard University staff Clark University faculty Transgender studies academics Quincy College faculty American sociologists {{US-sociologist-stub