Louka Maju Goetzke, M.A.

Adjunct Lecturer	Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany Zentrum für transdisziplinäre Geschlechterstudien	04-09/2025
Research Associate	Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, Germany, Institute of Sociology	since 10/2024
Visiting Research Fellow	Karlstad University, Sweden, GEXcel International Collegium for Advanced Transdisciplinary Gender Studies,	10-11/2022
Visiting Research Fellow	University of Brighton, England, Centre for Transforming Sexuality and Gender	08-09/2022
Doctoral Fellow	Research Training Group „Doing Transitions“, Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, Germany	01/2020-02/2024
M.A. Sociology (Cultural Analysis) Thesis: Becoming otherwise (other) with Butler & Deleuze	Goldsmiths University London, England	2017 – 2018
M.A. d’Etudes Européennes et internationales	Université Paris 8, Frankreich	2016 – 2019
M.A. Soziokulturelle Studien Thesis: terra incognita: Undisambiguation & positive difference	Europa Universität Viadrina, Deutschland	2015 – 2019
Design Thinking, Academic Programme, Advanced Track	Hasso-Plattner-Institut, Universität Potsdam, Deutschland	2014 – 2015
Stud. Hilfskraft am Centre for Digital Cultures	Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Deutschland	2013 – 2014
B.A. Kulturwissenschaften und Politikwissenschaft Erasmus Anthropology und Gender Studies Thesis: „A multiverse of cultures“ – Analysis of the Concept of Culture in Heinz Kimmerle’s Intercultural Philosophy	Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Deutschland University of Lapland, Finnland	2011 – 2015 2012 – 2013
Diplôme d’institut d’études politiques Premier cycle, Première année (no degree)	Sciences Po Bordeaux, Frankreich	2010 – 2011



Arranging Gender/Sex: How Trans/itions Assemble

Gefügige Geschlechter – wie Geschlechtstransitionen zustande kommen

The Ph.D. project looks at how gender/sex transitions come about in Germany today. By transitions I mean ways of changing gender/sex that do not adhere to the medically assigned and legally enforced static male/female dichotomy. I conducted a new materialist ethnography in Germany in 2020-2023: I interviewed transitioning individuals, collected data related to their transition processes, participated in community spaces, talked to activists, counsellors and medical practicioners, and studied medicolegal regulations.

I am interested in how gender/sex transitions are constituted and become evident as transitions: When is a transition a transition? How are its boundaries defined, and what gets excluded in the boundary-drawing-process? And what do these boundaries imply for the possibility to be/come trans/itioning? And for contemporary gender/sex relations more broadly? To analyse how transitions are composed and conditioned, I employ a new materialist methodology and draw on relational understandings of differentiation from Karen Barad’s Agential Realism, Gilles Deleuze’s Difference-in-itself, and the Deleuzo-Guattarian concept of Assemblage/Agencement.

PUBLISHED FINDINGS

Transitioning Out of Time: Why Every Gender Transition Is Always Already Late
published in Time & Society in 2025 | doi.org/10.1177/0961463X251325616

Abstract: While gender transitions are often discussed as a question of identity/body, this article examines them as a temporal issue. Gender transitions are not only chrononormatively located in youth as the life phase in which identity formation presumably takes place, but – regardless of an individual’s chronological age – are often framed as a second puberty. The article argues that this is a specific use of time that works to contain gender/sex and regulate transitions. Drawing from a Germany-based ethnographic study, the article explores how gender transitions in youth and adulthood take place through arranging time. While timing seems integral to transitions, it appears to be impossible to tran- sition at the right time: Every transition is always already late, foundationally ren- dered out of sync by the linear temporal organisation of identity. This is because trans is formed by marking it as change in gender/sex where chrononormative life course expects to be continuation.
Against this background, the article discusses gender transitions as time work entrenched in notions of youth and development. This time work imposes a teleology onto change and regulates and impedes transitions. The article shows that transitions are delineated by specific uses of time and theorises how time works to figure gender within modern linearity, suggesting that it is the assumption of linear time itself which makes it impossible for transitions to be on and in time and effectively displaces them from the present. Building on that, the article departs from common understandings of trans as incongruence of body/identity, venturing that the incongruence engendering transitions might be a temporal one. Concluding, the article considers whether for better trans politics, we need a different relation to time and move away from the linear segmentation of past/present/future, to make time for a trans presence that does not need to go anywhere.

Doing Gender Transitions
published in Zeitschrift für Pädagogik (in German) in 2022 | doi.org/10.3262/ZPB2201082

Abstract: This article focuses on gender transitions, a phenomenon that has received little attention in transition research thus far. Employing a neo-materialist research approach makes it possible to go beyond a consideration of gender transitions as mere individual transformation processes. Drawing on my qualitative research, I describe the formation of transitioning subjects in situated practices, taking into account the complex interaction of discourses, bodies, feelings, objects, knowledges, and institutional regulations. This highlights that gender transitions and transitioning subjects are not singular but relational processes that are neither exclusively socio-cultural nor exclusively material. Finally, I discuss propositions and implications of employing neo-materialist approaches to transition research, especially for fostering reflexivity and relationality.

16/02/2024: (Trans)Geschlechtlichkeit als Empfindung – eine neomaterialistische Perspektive auf Geschlechtsidentität. Workshop „Kritische Sexualforschung“ at the Institute for Social Research Frankfurt/Main

11/05/2023: How do gender transitions unfold? A new materialist ethnography. Temporalities in the life course. International Conference „Relational Perspectives on the Life Course“, Goethe Universität Frankfurt/Main

24/02/2023: „If you are a woman through and through, you’re not supposed to be happy about being seen as a man“ Or: What emotions and feelings do in gender transitions. Nordic Trans Studies Network Conference “From Transgender Rage to Trans Joy. Trans Studies through Affective Lens”, Tampere University Finnland

27/10/2022: Why should I change my body when I don’t suffer?“ – The Role of Distress and Want in Gender Transitions from a New Materialist Perspective. National Conference for Gender Studies, Karlstad University Sweden

28/09/2022: Doing Gender Transitions: Eine neomaterialistische Perspektive auf Geschlechter in Bewegung.  41. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, Universität Bielefeld

16/06/2022: Doing Gender Transitions from a new materialist perspective. European Feminist Research Conference, University Milano-Bicocca, Italy

13/06/2022: Becoming what you ought to have always been: Nature/culture boundary-making in Gender Transitions. Mid-term Conference des ESA RN 33 (Women’s and Gender Studies), University Milano-Bicocca, Italy

26/05/2022: Gendertransitionen: Geschlechtliche Transformationsprozesse als materiell-diskursive Assemblage. Sektion Materielle Kulturen. 7. Jahrestagung der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft (KWG), Universität Graz; Austria

15/03/2022: Gendertransitionen beforschen, Grenzen auloten, Grenzen ziehen. Arbeitsgruppe Doing Transitions: Herstellung und Verhandlung von Grenzen und Zugehörigkeiten an Übergängen, DGfE-Kongress 2022

02-03/12/2021: Doing Gender Transitions in neomaterialistischer Perspektivierung. Posterpräsentation auf der Fachkonferenz „Staying with the Trouble – 25 Jahre Forschungsschwerpunkt Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung in Hessen“, Frankfurt/Main

01/10/2021: Gender Transitions in Transformation: How do gender transitions emerge? A situated study with trans(itioning) subjects in Germany. Vortrag im Rahmen des Interdisciplinary Online-Symposiums „Gender in Transformation Processes: Central and Southeast European Perspectives“, University of Graz, Austria and University of Zadar and the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Split, Croatia

20/09/2021: „Und dann konnte ich mich zum ersten Mal selbst so sehen.“ – Zur Rolle von Un_sichtbarkeiten in Gender Transitionen. Vortag auf der 8. Jahrestagung der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Geschlechterforschung „Ambivalente Un_Sichtbarkeiten“, Online

01/09/2021: Gender Transitions as a Sociotechnical Issue: A New Materialist Approach. Paper (peer-reviewed) auf der 15th Conference of the European Sociological Association, Conference Track Science and Technology, Barcelona, Online

21/07/2021: Crossing Boundaries: Gender Transitions as more-than-human-assemblages. Paper (peer-reviewed) auf der International Conference on Frontiers of Humanity and Beyond: Towards new critical understandings of borders, CHAM Centre for the Humanities Lissabon, Online

10/06/2021: Gender Transition: Eine Reise von einem Geschlecht ins andere? Vortrag im Rahmen von „Studium Generale: Doing Transitions – wie sich Übergänge im Lebenslauf herstellen“, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

27/05/2021: Towards fugitive subjectivities. Trans as a non-linear and deterritorialising movement. Paper (peer-reviewed) auf der Konferenz „Creative Bodies – Creative Minds“, Universität Graz

17-19/02/2020: Doing Gender Transitions. Posterpräsentation auf der internationalen Konferenz „Doing Transitions in the Life Course“, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

09-10/10/2019: Queere Identitätskritik und Differenz. Posterpräsentation auf der internationalen Konferenz „Categories in Flux“, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

05/07/2017: Ein Recht auf mein Geschlecht: Über und gegen die Pathologisierung von Trans*-Personen, Vortrag an der Universität Freiburg

Goetzke, Louka Maju (2025): Transitioning Out of Time: Why Every Gender Transition is Always Already Late. Time & Society, online first. Open access unter: doi.org/10.1177/0961463X251325616

Goetzke, Louka Maju; inal, Öykü (2024). Interaktiv und intersektional: Sexualbildung für Jugendliche mit dem Digitalspiel ,Sibel’s Journey“. Zeitschrift für Sexualforschung; 37, S. 217 – 223. doi.org/ 10.1055/a-2442-0284

Goetzke, Louka Maju (2022). Doing Gender Transitions. Geschlechterübergänge in neomaterialistischer Perspektive und ihr Potential für die Übergangsforschung. Zeitschrift für Pädagogik Beiheft 68/2022, S. 82 – 97. doi.org/10.3262/ZPB2201082

Goetzke, Louka Maju, Schwertel, Tamara (2021). Neuer Materialismus [online]. socialnet Lexikon. Bonn: socialnet.

Goetzke, Louka Maju, Müssig, Magdalena (2020). Die Covid-19-Pandemie bedroht alle. Geschützt werden nur einige. Femina Politica, Heft 2/2020: Politiken der Generativität und Reproduktive Rechte, S. 121 – 122

Goetzke, Louka Maju, Müssig, Magdalena (2020). Familismus in der Coronakrise. Soziologiemagazin, Blogreihe 8: Soziologische Impulse während Corona

---

Copy Editor for Appenroth, Max, Castro Varela, María (2019) Trans & Care: Trans Personen zwischen Selbstsorge, Fürsorge und Versorgung. transcript Verlag

Natürlich gemacht: kranke Körper und gestörte Geister
Summer Term 2025, B.A. Soziologie, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Material Feminisms: Körper und Differenz neomaterialistisch begreifen
Summer Term 2025, M.A. Gender Studies, Humboldt Universität Berlin

Verschieden werden: Differenz(ierung) als Prozess
Summer Term 2022, M.A. & B.A. Gender Studies, Soziologie, Erziehungswissenschaften, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Umgang mit Geschlechtervielfalt: Einführung in die Trans Studies 
Winter Term 2020/21, B.A. Gender Studies, Soziologie, Erziehungswissenschaften, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

GUEST LECTURES

Wie kommen Gendertransitionen zustande? (Einmaliges B.A. Seminar am 17.12.2022 im Rahmen des Seminars “Trans*: Theorie/Kunst/Aktivismus”), Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität der Stadt Wien

How Do Gender Transitions Unfold? – A New Materialist Approach (Einmaliges Research Seminar, 22.09.2022), Centre for Transforming Sexuality and Gender, University of Brighton

Doing Gender Transitions – Geschlecht in Bewegung (Summer Term 2022, Gastbeitrag im Seminar Einführung in die Geschlechtersoziologie), B.A. Soziologie, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Gender Transition: Eine Reise von einem Geschlecht ins andere? (Summer Term 2021, Vortrag im Rahmen des Studium Generale: Doing Transitions – wie sich Übergänge im Lebenslauf herstellen), Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

Neomaterialistische Perspektiven auf Übergänge (Summer Term 2021, Gastbeitrag im Ringseminar Zu Übergängen forschen, gemeinsam mit Tamara Schwertel), Goethe-Universität Frankfurt 

Trans als Bewegung: Doing Gender Transitions in neomaterialistischer Perspektivierung (Summer Term 2020, Gastbeitrag im Ringseminar Zu Übergängen forschen – Perspektiven und Methoden zur Erforschung von Übergängen im Lebenslauf), Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

2024-2026

Forming Trans/sexuality at the Frankfurt Institute for Sexual Science (1973-2006)

Research project funded by the Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and the Arts in the programme „Dimensionen der Kategorie Geschlecht – Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung in Hessen“

The project looks at the formation of trans(sexuality) in Germany, focussing on the Frankfurt Institute for Sexual Science as a pivotal site for creating understandings and regulations of trans/gender/sex/uality. The project provides a discourse-historical analysis of the Institute’s role in shaping and conditioning trans/itions in Germany. I investigate how notions of gender/sex, body, health and identity were formed and modified over time at the institute, and inform treatment models, clinical guidelines and practices, as well as law making and public views and debates on trans/itions to this day. I take the institute as a vantage point to trace lager shifts in the medicolegal regulation of gender/sex and contextualise current debates around trans(sexuality) and gender self-determination, especially with regards to the Self-Determination Act and recent changes in diagnostic manuals, medical guidelines and practices.

---

2020-2021

#GenderStruggles: Building Community Resilience via Creativity and Digital Media. Raul Wallenberg Institute, Schweden, Sabanci University Gender and Women’s Studies Center of Excellence (SU Gender), Türkei, Center for Comparative Research on Democracy, Humboldt University Berlin.

InterGender – International Consortium for Interdisciplinary Feminist Research Training
Board Member for Cornelia Goethe Center, Goethe University Frankfurt
Part of the Executive Committee

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS) | Sektion Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung (FuG)

Kulturwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft (KWG) | Sektion Materielle Kulturen & Sektion Border Studies

European Sociological Association (ESA) | Research Network Women’s and Gender Studies & Research Network Science and Technology

ATGENDER

Inter*Trans*WissenschaftsNetzwerk (ITW)

Think Tank 30 | Club of Rome

Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft (GEW)

Ehemalige Stipendiat*innen der Heinrich Böll Stiftung e.V.