Juliana Huxtable's Cow-Woman; or, A Black Trans Femme Route Toward Pleasure

Abstract

Abstract In this article, the author focuses on Juliana Huxtable's (2019) exhibition Interfertility Industrial Complex: Snatch the Calf Back to theorize a Black trans affective posture toward pleasure. Contextualizing Huxtable's artistry within histories of Black feminine reproductive control, the author demonstrates how Huxtable's invented hybrid figure of the cow-woman builds a Black trans femme perspective on reproduction, which exceeds gendered capacity and bio-reproducibility. Then the author moves to analyze Huxtable's intimate account of learning how to perform bovine animal husbandry on a family farm. This account demonstrates a close embodied attunement that seeks to elicit pleasure for both the heifer as well as the farmer. The author analyzes how this relationship articulates a reproductive coalitional politic that crosses species as well as time. Throughout, the author draws on Black feminist theory, as well as trans and queer approaches to interspecies studies, to articulate how Huxtable's artistry offers a strategy for navigating the complex structures and relations that emerge from feelings of pleasure.