Decolonizing Trans/Gender Studies?

Abstract

In this article, the author argues that a decolonial perspective on gender means conceptualizing it as always already trans. The object of investigation is gender as a category and gender studies as a field of knowledge. To discuss what decolonizing trans/gender studies in Europe could mean, the author aims to bring different strands together that have been held apart so far: resistance against global attacks on gender studies, resistance against transphobic feminism, and the “decolonising the curriculum” movement in the United Kingdom. A critical focus on Eurocentric knowledge and truth claims means to define Europe as a complex set of geopolitical, historical, and epistemological processes and not just as a neutral location. At British universities, a mostly student-led movement has started to emerge that fights for decolonizing higher education. This movement is inspired by transnational student movements like Rhodes/Fees Must Fall in South Africa and calls for challenging racist, colonialist, nationalist, and neoliberal paradigms in knowledge production by addressing both issues of epistemology and access to higher education. Applying central political claims of the “decolonising the curriculum” movement, the author explores potentials and challenges of the task of decolonizing trans/gender studies in Europe and the global North. The author's intervention opens up a discussion on how to conceptualize knowledge on transgender with a central focus on decolonial and transnational perspectives.

The anti-feminism of anti-trans feminism

“…This widespread disinformation makes it more and more impossible to address misogyny and sexual violence in the realm of the traditional family, in normative gender and in the nation, where it regularly happens without the need to import it from the outside, and where it so direly needs resistance. Given the high exposure of queer, dyke, trans and non-binary people to sexual violence in institutions like families, schools, prisons and so on, it is important to reject the idea that it is only trans-exclusionary feminists who have reason to counter sexual violence as well as their claim that resistance to sexual violence requires essentialising sexual difference (Tudor, 2021). We find ourselves in a global political moment – ‘right wing times’ 8 – in which anti-gender and anti-transfeminism is going mainstream and shamelessly grooms people into joining conferences in the name of seemingly innocent promises of ‘women’s liberation’.…”

Academic free speech or right-wing grievance?

“…563,619 It is “laundered extremism”, 615 but in reality there is disconcerting overlap between gender-critical activism and far-right ideologies. 620–625 By suggesting that the trans community is denying “the material reality of sex”, 610 gender-critical scholars base their objections on a dimorphic, gendered-at-birth essentialism that presents a façade of neutrality, 548,563 but which ignores the diversity of non-binary sexual identity. 561,621 The existence of transgender people threatens those who would dichotomize gender, 626 with gender-critical scholarship often promoting a form of zero-sum feminism that is eerily reminiscent of White backlash again immigration, diversity hiring, and anti-racism efforts.…”

Navigating Detransition Borders: An Exploration of Social Media Narratives

“…The idea that trans-affirming narratives are enforced is also commonly heard from trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERF) and Christian lobby groups within mainstream media and academic settings alike, further highlighting the conservative and contentious social and political climate surrounding trans and detransition (Pearce et al, 2020;Slothouber, 2020;Tudor, 2021;Williams, 2020). Guerra et al (2020) in their recent case study of four participants who detransitioned raise a notable point regarding transaffirming narratives in relation to the role of media.…”