What Puppygirls Know? The (in)Human Pedagogy of a Trans Feminine Style
2025/09/11 by Jay Szpilka · 9 voices · 2 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Feminist Studies #Gender Roles and Identity Studies #Gender, Feminism, and Media #LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy #Life style #Lived experience #Style (visual arts)
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/08164649.2025.2556256
published in Australian Feminist Studies, 1-24 (Routledge)
openalex publication_date 2025/09/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/24
Abstract
‘Puppygirls’ is a name for a particular kinky trans feminine lesbian style, rooted in the long history of trans erotic productions, and currently thriving on social media platforms, such as Twitter (now X), Bluesky, or Discord. In this article, I provide an analysis of the style that is rooted in personal immersion in ‘puppygirl culture’. Using several examples of puppygirl media productions, I argue for the possibility of reading the puppygirl style as a critical practice: one that hints at ways of being trans that do rely on the ciscentric understanding of ‘the human’ as their point of reference. In doing so, I show how puppygirl style resonates with theoretical interventions in the field of trans studies offered by scholars such as Susan Stryker and Talia Mae Bettcher.
Citations
Discussions
- My god, this is hitting doi.org/10.1080/0816... [bsky, 41 points, 1 comments]
- Breaking out my best professional attire to dig into some REAL hard-hitting academic reading (unironically great paper btw, do some research for your local puppies) [bsky, 12 points, 1 comments]
- please consider: a scientific analysis of a puppygirl doi.org/10.1080/0816... [bsky, 10 points, 3 comments]
- It’s nothing bad! It’s a really insightful and moving bit of academic writing about puppygirls! Very applicable to Floret fanciers and other people invested in the erotica of unpersonhood. doi.org/10. [bsky, 5 points, 2 comments]
- Szpilka, J. (2025). What Puppygirls Know? The (in)Human Pedagogy of a Trans Feminine Style. Australian Feminist Studies, 1–24. doi.org/10.1080/0816... [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
- Reading a reddit thread about puppygirl shit posts and I was linked to this engaging academic paper about trans puppygirls from a sociology perspective. It's fun reading a well written academic paper [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
- puppygirl paper doi.org/10.1080/0816... [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
- this is a studied phenomenon mhm mhm doi.org/10.1080/0816... [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
- to me it feels like a form of self expression. Anyways this paper was going around a while ago and it definitely has better words than i do (about the concept of what a puppy girl is) doi.org/10.1080 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
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