Queer and Trans Yoga: Practices of Utopia in Hostile Times

Abstract

This article theorizes queer and trans yoga as a practice of queer utopia and embodied resistance to systems of subordination at a time of increased attacks on queer and trans life, rights, and freedom. While there is a growing robust literature that critiques the racialized gendered and colonialist formations of yoga in the West, few engagements beyond a few mainstream and scholarly monographs explore queer and trans yoga. This research contributes to this gap in developing an account of queer and trans yoga through autoethnography and testimony. It particularly emphasizes the potentials for cultivating pleasure in individual and collective terms through this queered practice.