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Symposium Open Call: Existing Otherwise (TVCE x BiGS)

Type: Conferences & Symposia [View all]
Posted by: Birkbeck University of London
Deadline: Fri, May 15th, 2026

Theme: Existing Otherwise

Symposium date: Friday 24th July 2026

In-person (with hybrid options): Birkbeck, University of London (London, UK)

In collaboration: Trans+ Virtual Centre of Excellence (TVCE) and Birkbeck Gender and Sexuality (BiGS)

Proposal deadline: Friday 15th May

Apply via: https://tvce.cargo.site/existing-otherwise

The Trans+ Virtual Centre of Excellence (TVCE), in collaboration with Birkbeck Gender and Sexuality Forum (BiGS), are proud to announce that we are co-producing this year’s symposium under the theme, Existing Otherwise. We invite trans+ artists, scholars, activists, and their allies (advocating through research across the arts, humanities, law, philosophy, medicine, and STEM) to explore existence itself as a radical method. At a time when trans+ lives are increasingly governed, scrutinised, and contested across legal, medical, and cultural domains, we turn toward generative possibilities: what does it mean to foreground ways of living, knowing, and relating that exceed, evolve, reframe, or refuse the normative structures through which legitimacy is policed and normativity enforced? How might queerness not only survive, but flourish, connect, and continually remake the world otherwise?

In naming these pressures, we also recognise that trans+ experiences are not singular. We explicitly invite attention to the uneven and intersectional conditions under which trans+ lives are lived; particularly for trans+ people from the Global Majority, and disabled trans+ communities, whose experiences of governance, exclusion, and resistance are shaped by overlapping structures of power. We welcome work that attends to these complexities with care, specificity, and accountability.

Extending our 2026 thematic of queer hope as a future-facing gesture, Existing Otherwise centres the already-present: the lived, embodied, fugitive, and relational practices through which trans+ people continue to create and transform the conditions of the present. Alongside this, we are interested in the intergenerational possibilities of trans+ spaces; how wisdom, learning, and celebration are fostered through engaging with and recognising trans+ elders, and how these dialogues across time might sustain more expansive, connected futures.

We invite contributions that engage with Existing Otherwise not only as a theme, but as a mode of doing; one that resists extraction, hierarchy, and institutional containment. We are particularly interested in practices that foreground care, reciprocity, and collective knowledge-making, and that model ways of being together otherwise

Attendance Bursary:
This year we are also very excited to share that BiGS is generously providing a small bursary for some attendees.

2 x 150 GBP Payment for self-employed / independent contributors such as artists and other practitioners presenting at the conference.

4 x 50 GBP Travel bursaries for students, self-employed or independent contributors such as artists and other practitioners. 

Application for a bursary should be indicated in the submission form and successful applicants will be facilitated by tickets booked directly with the Travel Agent appointed by Birkbeck, thus simplifying the reimbursement process.

Further Information:
For all questions concerning the bursary, please direct those to: s.posocco@bbk.ac.uk
For all questions concerning applications for film screening, please direct those to: s.holden@hud.ac.uk
For all other questions please contact: tomei.bacon@gsmd.ac.uk

Posted on Thu, April 30th, 2026
Expires on Fri, May 15th, 2026

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