This panel, featuring Ruth Pearce and Tankut Atuk, is part one of a two panel symposium held at UC Davis on February 25, 2026. This symposium brings together scholars, clinicians and activists to examine how trans health has been shaped and contested through medicine, ethics, and political struggle. Both conversations situate the contemporary moment’s heightened scrutiny, backlash, and regulatory intervention within broader histories of trans medicine–from early gatekeeping and experimental care to community-led health activism to the current reconfiguration of “evidence,” risk, and responsibility. What counts as care? Who gets to define it? How is medical authority produced and challenged?
Vital Relations: Rethinking Trans Health and Medicine (Panel One)
