Transgenders In Space

In a thread to another post, a reader commented:

I have followed NASA’s efforts recently, and it is no wonder why they are having trouble getting into space again. All of the videos they put out are soooo politically correct. They must overrepresent women, and pretend that all space achievements are done by women. When interviewing the teams that land a rover on Mars, women are over represented and you get the idea that women are doing all the serious work at NASA. This comes from the 8 years of the Obama administration. They are now one big Social Justice organization.

I don’t know about that; I don’t follow any of it. But the reader’s comment reminded me of  a letter I received earlier this summer from a reader who works at NASA (I checked out the reader’s background to see what s/he does at NASA). The reader said that NASA campuses (e.g., the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena) have been having Pride Month activities that seem silly, maybe, but haven’t touched on science. It was mostly stuff like this:

But one event — this one also, as it happens, at JPL — really concerned this reader, who wrote about a presentation by one Adriana Knouf. The reader writes of concern that wokeness is bleeding over into science in a detrimental way:

One would assume the Adriana is giving a talk to the San Francisco transcendental poets collective, but no, it’s at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA has always been a progressive place; it comes with the territory of believing in the transcendence of Man through technology and scientific discovery—it’s NASA’s main tenet, really. But this? Science is compromised.

Here’s what transgendered Adriana Knouf’s presentation at JPL was about: “Imagining Transgender/Non-Binary People In Space”:

Abstract: As far as we know, there have been no transgender people in space. Yet transgender people—as well as others who engage in extensive body modification necessary for survival, such as disabled folx—might be the most suited for space travel given our somatic experiences of deep xenological transformations. Such transformations will likely be required for survival and thriving both in extraterrestrial as well as future terrestrial environments. Speaker and Xenologist Adriana Knouf will explore these issues through projects in her newly launched tranxxeno lab, a nomadic artistic research laboratory that investigates the productive entanglements between entities trans and xeno.

The first project, “TX-1”, launched fragments of Knouf’s hormone replacement medications to the International Space Station and marked the first-known time that elements of the transgender experience orbit the earth. “TX-1” ultimately safely returned to the surface of the earth. This was a symbolic exodus from a planet that is often inhospitable to us, yet its return was a sign of resilience. Knouf also started a new project, tentatively entitled “Xenological Entanglements: 001. Plurigenesiology”, that explores the production of exogenous estradiol in microgravity conditions. These projects lead us to consider the audacity of queer and transgender futures in space, questions of more-than-human enhancement that connect to the historical legacy of the cyborg. They are also part of Knouf’s research into xenology, or the study, analysis, and development of the strange, the alien, the other. Alongside these projects and concepts, she will also interweave important aspects of her experiences with queerness and transness that are fundamentally intertwined with her work.

Speaker Bio:

Adriana Knouf, Ph.D. (she/her/hers, sie/hir/hirs) works as a xenologist and as an artist-scientist-writer-designer-engineer. She engages with topics such as space art, satellites, radio transmission, non-human encounters, drone flight, queer and trans futurities, machine learning, the voice, and papermaking. She is the founding facilitator of the tranxxeno lab, a nomadic artistic research laboratory that promotes entanglements amongst entities trans and xeno.

Knouf is also an Assistant Professor of Art + Design at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. She is the author of “How Noise Matters to Finance” (2016) and numerous other journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers dealing with topics as varied as bioart, queer and trans existences, papermaking and electronics, weird temporalities, radio, and surveillance. She has been selected for a number of prestigious residencies, including a Biofriction residency (SI), participation in Field_Notes (FI), and a project at the Wave Farm (US). Her past work has been recognized by a number of awards, including as a prize winner in The Lake’s Works for Radio #4 (2020) and an Honorary Mention by Prix Ars Electronica in 2005.

Fascinating. So, fifty-one years after Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the moon, humanity has sent a transgendered person’s hormone replacement meds into space.

What does it mean that NASA hosts presentations by drag queens talking about their romps in the woods, and lectures from promoters of “entanglements amongst entities trans and xeno”? Serious question. One can easily imagine lectures about LGBT scientists and their lives and work, but this? What does it mean? I’m not asking rhetorically. Is there any deeper meaning to it? The reader said s/he is worried that the Knouf presentation compromises science. What do you think?

UPDATE: A reader points out that rocket scientist Jack Parsons, a founder of JPL, was a sex cultist and black magic practitioner who was involved in occult circles with L. Ron Hubbard.

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