Siobhan Kelly is a scholar and theorist of trans studies and the study of religion. Prior to becoming a Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Scholar at Boston University, Siobhan taught at Brown University in Spring 2024 and defended their dissertation, “Public Parts: Psychoanalysis, the Study of Religion, and Trans Subjectivity,” at Harvard University in August 2024. Siobhan’s scholarship looks at the relationship between transphobic feminism, trans studies, religious rhetoric, and broader popular discourses of gender, sexuality, and transition. Their work has appeared in Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion and Theology & Sexuality, and is forthcoming in Journal of the American Academy of Religion and the edited collection Political Theology Reimagined: Theories, Ruptures, Itineraries (Duke University Press).

At BU, Siobhan is working on two book projects that come out of their dissertation. The first, Public Parts: Fetishism and Genitality, looks at flashpoints in the sprawling discourses of “fetishism” and the recurrent appearance of genitals therein in order to articulate a generalized theory of genitality and genital envy. The second, Trans Antagonism: On Engaging Transphobia, or Not, looks at how we read and understand transphobia within feminist thinking, pursuing what might happen if we allow ourselves to treat such irruptions of phobia antagonistically. Tracking feminist transphobia from its earlier iterations—including in the study of religion through the works of Mary Daly and Janice Raymond—through to more recent TERF nonsense in France, the UK, and the US, this project asks what bitterness, anger, and rage have to offer trans theorizing. Siobhan currently serves on The Status of LGBTIQ+ Persons in the Professions Committee for the American Academy of Religion.