Beyond the Incongruence of Gender Identity Expanding the Political-Theoretical Imaginary of Trans Studies

Während feministische Friedens-und Konfliktforscher*innen Militär, Gewalt und Krieg vielfach dezidiert kritisch analysieren (Sjoberg 2018; Günther/Hinterhuber/ Schmid 2020), positionieren sich relativ wenige feministische Forschungsbeiträge explizit antimilitaristisch oder pazifistisch. Im Folgenden möchte ich diejenigen Beiträge, die dies tun, untersuchen und die in ihnen enthaltene Kritik an Militär und bewaffneter Gewalt entlang von vier Dimensionen herausarbeiten: 1. der Reproduk-tion militarisierter Geschlechterhierarchien, 2. der Sanktionierung und des Unsicht-bar-Machens von Differenz, 3. der Vernachlässigung kontextueller Zusammenhänge von Gewalt sowie 4. der Marginalisierung nicht-gewaltsamer bzw. nicht-militäri-scher Ansätze der Konfliktbearbeitung. Die Untersuchung basiert auf einer Suche in der Datenbank scopus nach sozialwissenschaftlichen Publikationen zwischen Januar 2018 und Mai 2023

It is mid-October 2022 in Berlin and I find myself at a meeting organized by one of the biggest trans organizations of the country, the Bundesverband Trans (BVT).The topic for the afternoon is "Trans Studies in Germany -where are we and where do we want to go?" (Bundesverband Trans 2022).Considering the institutional non-existence of Trans Studies in the German context 1 , I look around, wondering what personal trajectories, texts discussions and activist encounters have shaped our understanding of this field of study and brought us here today.The event and the attendance speak to the relevance of Trans Studies.But the group discussions and informal conversations show another side: the experiences with teaching, researching or writing leave some of us politically frustrated.It seems as if Trans Studies, a space we seek to occupy for thinking and acting towards transformation, has its own agency, one that limits the kinds of questions we can ask, the demographics of the people who feel interpellated, and the analysis we are able to formulate.This agency is one that limits, in the end, the possibilities we can mobilize for change and the futures to which we can contribute.This discontent is not unique to the German context.Andrea Long Chu is a trans writer and critic based in New York who voiced her anger in one of the most-read articles from "Transgender Studies Quarterly" in 2019: "Let's face it: Trans Studies is over.If it isn't, it should be" (Chu/Drager 2019, 103).In this article I engage with the critical dialogue between Chu and Harsin Drager, and identify moments of agreement and disagreement in order to formulate my own discontent with the field, but also to articulate ways in which Trans Studies can better hold and nourish the kind of political and epistemic projects that I am interested in.Trans Studies should be over, says Chu, constructing Trans Studies as an external and irreparable entity.There is truth in the view that we don't decide on voluntary terms "where do we want to go with Trans Studies?", as the BVT asked.Trans Studies is already taking us places.But, by the same logic, we can't create an alternative space unaffected by the wider social dynamics that make Trans Studies so frustrating.Chu and Drager propose to embrace "trans satire" and to write without "political optimism", giving in to "the bitter disappointment of finding out the world is too small for all our desires, and especially the political ones" (ibid., 105-106).I refuse this on the grounds that there is too much at stake to use the academic space as a platform for voicing despair.Considering the intensification of the global economic, ecological and political crisis and Menschenrechte, ‚biologische Fakten' und binäre Geschlechter: Koloniale Geschichten der transantagonistischen Gegenwart JONAH I. GARDE.YV E. NAY Aktuell wird im deutschsprachigen Raum und darüber hinaus kontrovers darüber debattiert, ob der Zugang zu medizinischer und rechtlicher Selbstbestimmung des Geschlechts erleichtert werden soll.An dieser Diskussion sind unterschiedliche Akteur_innen beteiligt: Politiker_innen, die Rechtsentwürfe vorlegen, diskutieren und verwerfen, trans* Verbände und Aktivist_innen und ihre Verbündeten, die auf der Straße und im Parlament mehr Rechte einfordern, sowie geschlechteressentialistische Feminist_innen, rechte, rechtsextreme und klerikale Akteur_innen, die an der Vorstellung einer ‚biologischen' und damit ‚objektiven' Zweigeschlechtlichkeit festhalten (Pearce/Erikainen/Vincent 2020; Bassi/LaFleur 2022).Diese sehr unterschiedlichen Akteur_innen und ihre Positionen prägen die öffentliche Debatte rund um geschlechtliche Selbstbestimmung.In unserem Beitrag gehen wir der Frage nach, wie diese aktuellen Aushandlungen im Rahmen von trans* Aktivismus zu verstehen sind und erörtern deren historische Verfasstheit.Dazu untersuchen wir zunächst, wie politische Bestrebungen zur Entpathologisierung medizinischer und rechtlicher Regulierung geschlechtlich vielfältiger Lebensweisen auf der Vorstellung geschlechtlicher Selbstbestimmung als Menschenrecht gründen.Darauf aufbauend widmen wir uns der Rolle, die der Biologie in diesen Diskussionen zukommt, analysieren die historische Verfasstheit der Vorstellung ‚biologischer Zweigeschlechtlichkeit' und setzen uns kritisch mit dem Konzept des ‚Mensch-Seins' auseinander.Wir zeigen, wie all diese aktuellen Auseinandersetzungen über die Definition von Geschlecht und geschlechtlicher Selbstbestimmung eine Fortführung der Kämpfe um die Kategorie ‚Mensch' darstellen und wie diese durch historisch geformte koloniale Gewalt geprägt sind.Schließlich fragen wir danach, welche Konsequenzen diese Auseinandersetzung und deren historische Verfasstheit für das Wissenschaftsfeld der Trans Studies hat und plädieren für ein Verständnis von Trans Studies, welches eben jene Grenzziehungen und deren Gewalt kritisch analysiert.

Introduction
AIDS, from the beginning, has been a mnemonic pandemic.Remembering and forgetting -from recollection's bittersweet succor to the merciful reprieve of absentmindedness, from poignant commemoration to invidious amnesia, from mourning's militancy to mnemonicide -have reflected and constituted the vicissitudes of HIV/AIDS, its inventions, significations, and transformations in and across time, then and now and into the welter, promise and pitfall, of future and futurity (…) (Morris III 2012, 49).
In 1991, a subgroup of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), the TAG Helms 7 (TAGH7), inflated a large condom-shaped balloon over a senator's house in a small Virginia town to advocate against the stigmatization of people with HIV/ AIDS and for practicing safer sex.They filmed it.In 2019, the streaming series "Pose" (2018-2021) -a fictional story about the House-Ballroom Culture, a community created largely by and for queer and trans* Black and Brown people in North American cities of the late 20 th century -acts out its own version of the protest in the episode titled "Blow".One striking difference is that, in contrast to the 'original', the bodies in action in Pose's iteration are mostly not white.The possible discomfort -not only my own (King 2019) -induced by the incredibility of this significant change -since the peaceful and joyous unfolding of the Pose action would likely be impossible even today -serves as the departure point for this paper.In their article titled "ACT UP Had a Diversity Problem.Should 'Pose' Correct it?"Mark S. King (2019) poses the questions that inspired this paper: Is the episode a correction of history?And/or is Pose guilty of appropriating past events?In light of the issue of a historicization of trans*-and queerness with its compulsory colonial and racist structuring, I propose commoning or the commons as more than just a concept to understand what Pose does in this scene and at large.I elaborate on House-Ballroom Culture's 'disidentificatory' (Muñoz 1999) practices as commoning and ACT UP's extensive video work as commons especially in relation to differ ent/other temporalities and histories before close-reading the episode that features the condom action.Thus, I suggest these practices of commoning as forms of trans* politics that undo and intervene into binary and linear notions of time, community and subjectivity.As the introductory quote emphasizes, the HIV/AIDS crisis has to be understood in and across relation(s) to past, present and future entanglements in contrast to a linear understanding of time.It is necessary to reach back into history and enlist its images, narratives and ideas for a future that possibly differs from it and from today, where an alternative for dealing with the conditions of, from and for the virus does not seem What is Guarded in Toilets?On Transphobia, Citizenship and Militarisation

OLGA PLAKHOTNIK. MARYA MAYERCHYK
In December 2020, Гендер в деталях (Gender in Detail), a Ukrainian online media platform, published an improvised survey inquiring whether "there are any group participants who initially had phobias against transgender women but have lost them after discussions in this group" (Гендер в деталях (Gender in Detail) 2020).The media clarified what kind of phobias they mean: when people are "afraid of being attacked in a toilet" by a transgender woman while simultaneously accepting the primacy of human rights and not thinking that "transgender people are perverts and must be fought against." 1 We suppose that by asking this question, the editor sought to collect proof that the platform contributes to overcoming transphobia in Ukrainian society, as the media regularly publishes materials written by and in support of transgender people.More than 300 answers to the question revealed an unexpected twist in the debate: many commentators admitted that their transphobic anxieties have been increasing because of the publications on transgender topics in the media.This observation made us believe that contemporary transphobia among feminist-minded people, as well as human rights activists, is not just a matter of ignorance or insufficient outreach activity.Something else is going on that has to do with the core of feminist thinking.In this paper, we seek to explore the discursive underpinnings of feminist transphobia (TERF or terfism 2 ) in Ukraine with a specific focus on the connections between the feminist idea of rape culture, the modern binary gender regime, the mainstream idea of gender equality, and militarisation/securitisation of our societies.How did it happen that a considerable part of feminist communities, activist and academic alike, align with the conservative anti-gender movements in producing anti-transgender public discourse?Why do even deliberate efforts to overcome transphobia in feminist settings fail?

Faces of Feminist Transphobia
During an interview for the British magazine "New Statesman," Judith Butler expressed their opinion on trans-exclusive radical feminism as follows: My wager is that most feminists support trans rights and oppose all forms of trans phobia.So I find it worrisome that suddenly the trans-exclusionary radical feminist position is understood as commonly accepted or even mainstream.I think it is actually a fringe move ment that is seeking to speak in the name of the mainstream, and that our responsibility is to refuse to let that happen (Farber 2020).