My dissertation examines how biologists drew on binary gender norms to structure their investigation of sexual reproduction as a mechanism for producing genetic variation between the 1880s and 1950s. Developments in German cytology and US genetics led to the establishment of heredity as an object of biological investigation, as biologists speculated on the purpose of the evolution of sex from a primordial state of asexual reproduction. By the 1930s, the evolutionary synthesis saw a widespread acceptance of Mendelian inheritance and the assumption that sexual reproduction evolved because it was superior at producing genetic variation. I argue that such a conception of variation, modeled on genetics and binary sexuality, served as a cisheteronormative foundation for institutionalizing diversity as a boon rather than a detriment.
I am also an admin of Trans PhD Network, a Facebook networking and support group for trans people pursuing graduate work.
B.A. in Environmental Studies, Yale-NUS College
History of biology; queer theory; feminist STS; transgender studies; biopolitics; environmental humanities
STSC-168 Environment and Society (TA, Fall 2020)
HSOC-010 Health and Societies: Global Perspectives (TA, Spring 2021)
HSOC-102 Bioethics (TA, Spring 2022)
HSOC-0400 Medicine in History (TA, Fall 2022)
Kwok Yingchen, Marvin Joseph F. Montefrio, and Edson C. Tandoc Jr. 2022. "Navigating Discipline and Indulgence: The Performance of Contradiction on Instagram Food Posts in the Philippines." Food, Culture & Society. 26 (3): 793–813.
Kwok Yingchen. "Method and Pedagogy in Trans Studies, Trans History, and the History of Science: An Interview with Beans Velocci." 2022. FQT/GSWS.