Trans-Identifying Male Academic Who Claimed Porn Motivated His Transition Awarded Pulitzer Prize
Genevieve Gluck
May 11, 2023
https://genevievegluck.substack.com/p/trans-identifying-male-academic-who
https://reduxx.info/trans-identifying-male-academic-who-claimed-porn-motivated-his-transition-awarded-pulitzer-prize/
A male academic who identifies as a transgender woman has been awarded a Pulitzer prize for literary criticism, prompting outcry on social media as users draw attention to his history of disturbing comments about how pornography influenced his transition.
Andrea Long Chu, born Andrew, is a 2014 graduate from Duke University and a current doctoral student in comparative literature at New York University. In 2021, he was appointed to the role of book critic by New York Magazine, where his writing has now been granted a2023 Pulitzer.
In a press release announcing his appointment to the position at the time, New York culture editor Gazelle Emami said, “Andrea has long been one of our favorite writers and thinkers, and we’re so excited to publish her incisive criticism in the pages of New York and on Vulture more regularly.”
The announcement was not received well on some parts of social media, where women’s rights advocates condemned the decision and pointed to Chu’s lengthy history of equating womanhood with pornography addiction.
In 2019, Chu’s first book, Females, was published by Verso Press. The thesis of the 94-page screed was that anyone can become female, and that being penetrated during sex defines womanhood.
“Getting fucked makes you female because fucked is what a female is,” Chu writes in the short book, describing himself as once being “a sad, pretentious boy, furious about rape, hopelessly addicted to pornography.”
Chu claims that it was his obsession with pornography that led him to begin identifying as transgender.