Provincializing Trans* Modernity

In: TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Volume 8, Issue 2, p. 207-222

Abstract

Abstract
This article aims to disrupt notions of modernity deeply inscribed in the origin narrative of trans studies by thinking through the relationship between transgender, the transatlantic, and Europe. Drawing on Saidiya Hartman's and Christina Sharpe's Black feminist theorizing of the asterisk and the multiple meanings embedded in trans*, the article takes up the archives of European sexology to explore their entangled histories as well as their limitations. Through a critical reading of Der Steinachfilm that is attentive to its transgressive imaginary as well as its silenced colonial and racial subtext, the author aims to contribute to the necessary task of provincializing some of trans studies' dominant epistemologies.