LaVelle Ridley is Assistant Professor of Queer/Trans* Studies in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University. Dr. Ridley’s research and teaching interests meet at the intersection of queer and transgender studies, Black feminisms, and literary and cultural studies of racialized gender and sexuality. Through life writing, film, and media, she observes how trans women of color use imagination critically to transform the world at large. She is currently working on her first book project, tentatively titled Imagining Freedom: Critical Trans* Imagination in Black Trans Life Narratives which articulates how black trans women life writers such as Janet Mock, CeCe McDonald, and Venus Selenite engage in political freedom-making through their life narratives.

Dr. Ridley also engages in interdisciplinary collaboration in academic and community spaces, particularly around prison abolition, oral history, and understanding the cultural philosophies of queer and trans people of color. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Feminist Studies, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, and TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, the latter for which she serves as Book Reviews Editor. Dr. Ridley is also coediting the forthcoming anthology Paradise on the Margins: Worldmaking by Trans Women of Color.

Dr. Ridley is the recipient of the 2023-2024 University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship. She has received additional grants and awards for her scholarship and community-engaged work from the University of Michigan, Rackham Graduate School, the Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture in Harlem, and the Miss Major Alexander L. Lee TGI Justice Project Black Trans Cultural Center in San Francisco. Dr. Ridley currently serves on advisory/steering committees for several academic organizations and projects that promote trans studies scholarship, public humanities work, and interdisciplinary feminist collaboration. She has served in some administrative capacity for national conferences such as the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA), the Transgender Media Lab housed at Carleton University, and the TEN:TACLES (Transgender Educational Network: Theory in Action for Creativity, Liberation, Empowerment, and Service) Initiative, a $1.5 million Mellon Foundation-funded initiative started by trans historian Susan Stryker to bring trans-oriented humanities and cultural studies scholarship to bear on practices of social transformation.

When not elevating the stories of queer and trans people of color or doing community-engaged work, Dr. Ridley enjoys hobbies of watching anime, engaging in spiritual practice, and crafting rainbows out of all kinds of materials. These rainbows—made of flowers, lace, paint, etc.—symbolize Dr. Ridley’s personal pledge to always advocate for the well-being of marginalized youth, especially queer and trans youth, youth of color, and first-generation students.

Selected Publications:

• Co-written with Erique Zhang, Julian Kevon Glover, Ava L.J. Kim, Tamsin Kimoto, Nathan Alexander Moore, and æryka jourdaine hollis o’neill: “A Tranifesto for the Dolls: Towards a Trans Femme of Color Theory.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 10.3-4 (November 2023): 328-349.
• Co-written with Matt Richardson, Eve Brown, Trystan Cotton, Che Gossett, and C. Riley Snorton: “Between Inconceivable and Criminal: Black Trans Feminism and the History of the Present.” Feminist Studies 48.3 (2022): 807-823.
• “Imagining Otherly: Performing Possible Black Trans Feminist Futures in Tangerine.” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 6.4 (November 2019): 481-490.
• “The Arrival of Black Trans Mattering.” Review of C. Riley Snorton’s Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 25.4 (October 2019): 667-669.