Abstract:
In this seminar, I will present work in progress from a book-length project in which I triangulate descriptive quantitative data from multiple sources with qualitative cases that allow me to look at what Jenny Trinitapoli calls “demography, narrated from the inside.” The goal of the book is to evaluate the role of three plausible mechanisms in shaping the apparent rise of transgender identification over several recent birth cohorts in the United States: the expanding empire of choice, biographical availability, and the primacy paradox. Drawing from the work of Jason Seawright and others, I will give an outline of the approach as it has been developed in the fields of political science and sociology, explain what drew me to use the approach in my work, and demonstrate the ways in which the approach has fit my goals, alongside with problems and questions that have arisen while implementing it.
Danya Lagos is an Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley’s Department of Sociology specializing in gender and social change at the population level. Their research has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Demography, and the Annual Review of Sociology. They are currently working on a book titled Gender, Distributed: The Population Dynamics of the Transgender Tipping Point.
