Liam Lair, Ph.D.

Liam Lair is an Associate Professor of Women's & Gender Studies at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He teaches classes on feminism, queer activism, and trans studies. 

Liam Oliver Lair's current research examines the development of “transvestite” and “transsexual” as diagnoses in the early 20th century. Eugenics influenced understandings of these diagnoses, as well as gender norms more broadly, and the vestiges of eugenics continue to be present in current day figurations of transsexual diagnosis and identity. He has presented his work at the National Women’s Studies Association conference, the Oral History Association conference, at the Queer Practices, Places, and Lives symposium, and is presenting at the American Studies Association conference this October. His publications include “Interrogating Trans* Identities in the Archive,” in Out of the Closet, Into the Archive: Researching Sexual Histories, eds. Jamie Cantrell and Amy Stone (SUNY Press, forthcoming December 2015) and “Embodied Knowledge and Accessible Community: An Oral History of Four Rehearsals and a Performance,” co-authored with Ashley Mog, in The Oral History Review. ​