Abstract
Transgender, as a term, is predicated on movement—it journeys conceptually with particular ideas, implied meaning, suggested politics, and possible narratives. Like other entities, which flow, transgender coheres around certain bodies, institutions, and ideas. For gender refugees, this is a term, though, which is chosen, selected over a litany of others: it is in this choosing that the answers to what transgender does and is expected to do unfold. In coming to South Africa transgender is expected to work as a means through which to translate their gender identity and expression in a language that is considered as already existing, as a constitutive element, of the South African national body. This suggests that transgender must draw its meaning in relation not only to bodies but also to geo-political locales, perceptions, and, most importantly, the needs of knowing subjects. As a conclusion this chapter suggests that ‘transgender’ and gender refugees work in concert with one another, but they are both constituted by networks of knowledge and power that are transformed by their presence. It is the combination of these journeys read as corpo-political narratives that offer a particular geographically anchored explanation for the existence and experiences of gender refugees.
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Notes
- 1.
Arthur
- 2.
See: Martin Manalansan, Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003); William Leap and Tom BoellStorff, Speaking in Queer Tongues: Globalization and Gay Language (University of Illinois Press, 2004); David AB Murray, ‘Becoming Queer Here: Integration and Adaptation Experiences of Sexual Minority Refugees in Toronto’, Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 28, no. 2 (2013): 127–35.
- 3.
Stephen Whittle, ‘Foreword’, in The Transgender Studies Reader, ed. Stephen Whittle and Susan Stryker (New York: Routledge, 2006), xi.
- 4.
Andrew Tucker, Queer Visibilities: Space, Identity and Interaction in Cape Town (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 4.
- 5.
David AB Murray, ‘The (Not so) Straight Story: Queering Migration Narratives of Sexual Orientation and Gendered Identity Refugee Claimants’, Sexualities 17, no. 4 (2014): 463.
- 6.
Murray, ‘The (Not so) Straight Story’, 463–464.
- 7.
See Appendix C for further information.
- 8.
Aren Z Aizura, ‘Transgender Travel Narratives’, in Transgender Migrations: The Bodies, Borders and Politics of Transition, ed. Trystan T Cotten (New York: Routledge, 2012), 142.
- 9.
Judith Butler, Undoing Gender (New York: Routledge, 2004), 52–53.
- 10.
Victor Mukasa, ‘Uganda Is Home’, Immigration Equality, 10 October 2013, http://www.immigrationequality.org/tamaras-journey-a-story-of-hope/.
- 11.
Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodriguez, ‘Decolonizing Postcolonial Rhetoric’, in Decolonizing European Sociology: Transdisciplinary Approaches, ed. Manuela Boatcă, Costa Sérgio, and Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodriguez (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2009), 61.
- 12.
Paisley Currah, ‘Homonationalism, State Rationalities, and Sex Contradictions’, Theory & Event 16, no. 1 (2013).
- 13.
Susan Stryker, ‘Biopolitics’, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1, no. 1–2 (2014), 39.
- 14.
Paisley Currah and Tara Mulqueen, ‘Securitizing Gender: Identity, Biometrics, and Transgender Bodies at the Airport’, Social Research 78, no. 2 (2011), 578.
- 15.
Jake Payne, ‘Unsuitable Bodies: Trans People and Cisnormativity in Shelter Services’, Canadian Social Work Review 28, no. 1 (2011), 131.
- 16.
NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names (London: Chatto & Windus, 2013), 192.
- 17.
Kenichi Serino, ‘Gay Refugees Meet Hostility in “Liberal” SA’, bdlive.co.za , 26 August 2008, http://www.bdlive.co.za/articles/2008/08/26/gay-refugees-meet-hostility-in-liberal-sa?service=print.
- 18.
Beyonce Karungi, ‘Human Rights! In Whose Lens? The Agony of a Transgender Woman in Uganda’, Kuchu Times, 10 September 2015, https://www.kuchutimes.com/2015/09/human-rights-in-whose-lens-the-agony-of-a-transgender-woman-in-uganda/.
- 19.
Serena Parekh, Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Modernity: A Phenomenology of Human Rights (New York: Routledge, 2008), 25.
- 20.
Parekh, Hannah Arendt, 40.
- 21.
Parekh, 40.
- 22.
Alex.
- 23.
Sara Ahmed, Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality (New York: Routledge, 2000), 21.
- 24.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (The World Publishing Company, 1962), 294.
- 25.
‘Sasha’. Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action Archives of South Africa (GALA). Available at ‘Gender Dynamix Collection—GAL108’, Johannesburg, William Cullen Library, University of the Witwatersrand.
- 26.
Ava.
References
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Mukasa, Victor. ‘Uganda Is Home’. Immigration Equality, 10 October 2013. http://www.immigrationequality.org/tamaras-journey-a-story-of-hope/.
Murray, David A.B. ‘The (Not So) Straight Story: Queering Migration Narratives of Sexual Orientation and Gendered Identity Refugee Claimants’. Sexualities 17, no. 4 (2014): 451–471.
Parekh, Serena. Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Modernity: A Phenomenology of Human Rights. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Payne, Jake. ‘Unsuitable Bodies: Trans People and Cisnormativity in Shelter Services’. Canadian Social Work Review 28, no. 1 (2011): 129–137.
Rodriguez, Encarnación Gutiérrez. ‘Decolonizing Postcolonial Rhetoric’. In Decolonizing European Sociology: Transdisciplinary Approaches, ed. Manuela Boatcă, Costa Sérgio, and Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodriguez, 49–71. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, 2009.
‘Sasha’. Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action Archives of South Africa (GALA). Available at ‘Gender Dynamix Collection—GAL108’, Johannesburg, William Cullen Library, University of the Witwatersrand.
Serino, Kenichi. ‘Gay Refugees Meet Hostility in “Liberal” SA’. bdlive.co.za , 26 August 2008. http://www.bdlive.co.za/articles/2008/08/26/gay-refugees-meet-hostility-in-liberal-sa?service=print.
Stryker, Susan. ‘Biopolitics’. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1, no. 1–2 (2014): 38–42.
Tucker, Andrew. Queer Visibilities: Space, Identity and Interaction in Cape Town. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
Whittle, Stephen. ‘Foreword’. In The Transgender Studies Reader, ed. Stephen Whittle and Susan Stryker, xi–xv. New York: Routledge, 2006.
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Camminga, B. (2019). Conclusion: “The Journey Does Not End. It’s a Life Time Journey”. In: Transgender Refugees and the Imagined South Africa. Global Queer Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92669-8_7
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