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Shifting Borderlands and Becoming a Gender Refugee

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Transgender Refugees and the Imagined South Africa

Part of the book series: Global Queer Politics ((GQP))

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Abstract

Key to both transgender and refugee experience is migration. For refugees, migration is considered constitutive of a physical, coerced movement, away from home, traversing borders in an effort to reach safety. As a dominant element within transgender, migration, though originating in work regarding transsexuality, has come to be broadly theorised as a linear, largely metaphorical experience, structured by the ‘homes’ of man/womanhood. A central critique to this framing has been that the predominant subject of this narrative is Anglo-American, white, and middle class. This chapter explores how, when, and under what circumstances transgender-identified individuals from countries in Africa are forced to journey and how they come to seek refuge in South Africa specifically. Drawing on decolonial thought this chapter also considers what forced migration in relation to dominant transgender narratives might reveal about the complexity of transgender in this context. Utilising the notions of ‘shifting’ and ‘discomfort’ as analytics, I suggest that South Africa represents a particular understanding of freedom due to widespread knowledge of its unique constitutional precepts. Emphasising how the state in gender refugees’ countries of origin, which sanctions the possibility of death for transgender people as exemplary subjects, plays a transformative role in the decision to flee.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    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.

  2. 2.

    See: Jay Prosser, Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).

  3. 3.

    Aizura, ‘Transgender Travel Narratives’, 142.

  4. 4.

    Jack Halberstam, Female Masculinity (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1998), 164.

  5. 5.

    Avtar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities (London and New York: Routledge, 1996).

  6. 6.

    Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987).

  7. 7.

    Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (New York: Routledge, 1993).

  8. 8.

    Anthony Downey, ‘Exemplary Subjects: Camps and the Politics of Representation’, in Giorgio Agamben – Legal, Political and Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Tom Frost (Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2013), 113.

  9. 9.

    Alex.

  10. 10.

    Alex’s preferred pronouns are ‘they’ and ‘them’.

  11. 11.

    Alex.

  12. 12.

    Susan Stryker, ‘My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix’, in The Transgender Studies Reader, ed. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle (New York: Routledge, 2006), 253.

  13. 13.

    Butler, Bodies That Matter, 7.

  14. 14.

    Butler, Bodies That Matter, 8.

  15. 15.

    Stella.

  16. 16.

    Tatenda in Christopher Dolan, Alexandra Chapman, and Daniel Neumann, Getting Out (Producciones Doble Banda S.L., 2011).

  17. 17.

    Ava.

  18. 18.

    Sara Ahmed, Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality (New York: Routledge, 2000), 21.

  19. 19.

    Ahmed, Strange Encounters, 21–22.

  20. 20.

    Akraam.

  21. 21.

    Alex.

  22. 22.

    Nelly.

  23. 23.

    A day on which children do not have to wear uniform to school. Instead they are allowed to wear their casual clothes.

  24. 24.

    Bobbie.

  25. 25.

    Akraam.

  26. 26.

    Derogatory term or slur similar to ‘moffie’.

  27. 27.

    Stella.

  28. 28.

    Tatenda in Busisiwe Ntluli, ‘The Stories of Several LGBTI Africans Persecuted for Being Born LGBTI’, Special Assignment (Cape Town: South African Broadcasting Corporation, 20 October 2011), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtAa4ClzL14.

  29. 29.

    Alumine Moreno, ‘Open Space: The Politics of Visibility and the GLTTTBI Movement in Argentina’, Feminist Review, no. 89 (2008), 140.

  30. 30.

    ‘Transgender in Africa: The Great Divide’, Mail & Guardian, 17 July 2017, http://mg.co.za/multimedia/2013-07-16-transgender-in-africa-the-great-divide/.

  31. 31.

    Arthur.

  32. 32.

    Ahmed, 30.

  33. 33.

    Moreno, ‘Open Space’, 140.

  34. 34.

    Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 170.

  35. 35.

    Sunera Thobani, ‘Empire, Bare Life and the Constitution of Whiteness Sovereignty in the Age of Terror’, Borderlands 11, no. 1 (2012), 3.

  36. 36.

    Vivian K Namaste, Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 141.

  37. 37.

    Namaste, Invisible Lives, 140.

  38. 38.

    Namaste, Invisible Lives, 140–141.

  39. 39.

    Namaste, Invisible Lives, 138.

  40. 40.

    Sarah Lamble, ‘Retelling Racialized Violence, Remaking White Innocence: The Politics of Interlocking Oppressions in Transgender Day of Remembrance’, Sexuality Research and Social Policy 5, no. 1 (2008), 32.

  41. 41.

    Victor Mukasa and Carsten Balzer, ‘“People Have Realized the Need for an African Trans Movement” Interview with Victor Mukasa, African Trans Activist Representing IGLHRC (International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission) and TITs Uganda (Transgenders Intersex Transsexuals Uganda)’, Liminalis, no. 3 (2009), 124.

  42. 42.

    Julius Kaggwa, ‘Intersex the Forgotten Constituency’, in African Sexualities Reader, ed. Sylvia Tamale (Cape Town: Pambakuza Press, 2011), 233–234.

  43. 43.

    Kaggwa, ‘Intersex the Forgotten Constituency’, 233–234.

  44. 44.

    Jonny von Wallström, Have You Had to Convince People You’re a Transgender Woman? – Episode 5, The Pearl of Africa, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlZjUpUyxPA.

  45. 45.

    Bobbie.

  46. 46.

    Tricia.

  47. 47.

    Aizura, 142.

  48. 48.

    Prosser, Second Skins.

  49. 49.

    Bhanji, 166.

  50. 50.

    Aizura, 142.

  51. 51.

    Bhanji, ‘TRANS/SCRIPTIONS’, 158.

  52. 52.

    Aizura, 140.

  53. 53.

    Bhanji, 162.

  54. 54.

    Aizura, 142.

  55. 55.

    Halberstam, Female Masculinity, 143.

  56. 56.

    Halberstam, 172.

  57. 57.

    Sandy Stone, ‘The “Empire” Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto’, in The Transgender Studies Reader, ed. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle (New York: Routledge, 2006), 231.

  58. 58.

    A Moreno, ‘Open Space: The Politics of Visibility and the GLTTTBI Movement in Argentina,’ Feminist Review, 89 (2008).

  59. 59.

    Halberstam, 163.

  60. 60.

    Halberstam, 163.

  61. 61.

    Erika Aigner-Varoz, ‘Metaphors of a Mestiza Consciousness: Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera’, Melus 25, no. 2 Latino/a Identities (2000), 49.

  62. 62.

    Halberstam, 163.

  63. 63.

    Nelly.

  64. 64.

    Halberstam, 162, 171.

  65. 65.

    Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987), 78.

  66. 66.

    Gloria Anzaldúa, ‘(Un)Natural Bridges, (Un)Safe Spaces’, in This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation, ed. Gloria Anzaldúa, and AnaLouise Keating (New York: Routledge, 2013), 1.

  67. 67.

    Tom.

  68. 68.

    Victor Mukasa, ‘On Transgender Human Rights Issues in Africa’, pambazuka, 7 December 2006, http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/38727.

  69. 69.

    Tatenda in Dolan, Getting Out.

  70. 70.

    Xtra Staff, Pride Toronto’s International Grand Marshal Victor J Mukasa (xtraonline, 2009), http://youtu.be/YL8JtDCw_Cw.

  71. 71.

    Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera, 79.

  72. 72.

    Don Romesburg, ‘Rae Bourbon’s Life in Motion’, in Transgender Migrations: The Bodies, Borders and Politics of Transition, ed. Trystan T Cotten (New York: Routledge, 2012), 121.

  73. 73.

    Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power.

  74. 74.

    Anthony Downey, ‘Exemplary Subjects’, 119.

  75. 75.

    ‘Sasha’. Interview with ‘Sasha’, 2008. ‘Gender Dynamix Collection – GAL108’. Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action Archive William Cullen Library, University of the Witwatersrand.

  76. 76.

    Akraam.

  77. 77.

    Achille Mbembe, ‘Necropolitics’, trans. Meintjies Libby, Public Culture 15, no. 1 (2003): 11–40.

  78. 78.

    Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality: 1 (London: Penguin Books, 1998).

  79. 79.

    Nicholas Mirzoeff, ‘The Sea and the Land: Biopower and Visuality from Slavery to Katrina’, Culture, Theory and Critique 50, no. 2–3 (2009), 290.

  80. 80.

    Alex.

  81. 81.

    Christian Holler and Achille Mbembe, ‘Africa in Motion: An Interview with the Post-Colonialism Theoretician Achille Mbembe | Mute’, Metamute, 17 March 2007, http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/africa-motion-interview-post-colonialism-theoretician-achille-mbembe.

  82. 82.

    Jonny von Wallström, A Ugandan Transgender Girl Fight for Her Right to Love – Episode 1, The Pearl of Africa, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR9n4Q-OnLI.

  83. 83.

    Victor Mukasa and Rev. Canon Albert Ogle, ‘Washington National Cathedral: Information about LGBT Rights Abroad: The Spirit of 76’, Washington National Cathedral, 2013, http://www.nationalcathedral.org/events/SF20130407.shtml.

  84. 84.

    Butler, 7.

  85. 85.

    Achille Mbembe, On the Postcolony (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2015), 174.

  86. 86.

    Reuters, ‘Gambia’s Jammeh Calls Gays “Vermin”, Says to Fight like Mosquitoes’, Yahoo News, 18 February 2014, https://www.yahoo.com/news/gambia-39-jammeh-calls-gays-39-vermin-39-185834391.html?ref=gs.

  87. 87.

    Anias-Wedza Chigwedere, Zimbabwe parliamentary debate, September 28, 1995, quoted in Katherine Franke, ‘Sexual Tensions of Post-Empire’, Studies in Law, Politics and Society 33 (2004): 63–88.

  88. 88.

    Tricia.

  89. 89.

    Tatenda in Dolan.

  90. 90.

    Akraam.

  91. 91.

    Daniel.

  92. 92.

    ‘Sasha’. Interview with ‘Sasha’.

  93. 93.

    Prosser, 205.

  94. 94.

    Arthur.

  95. 95.

    Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York and London: Verso Books, 2006), 48.

  96. 96.

    Daniel.

  97. 97.

    Kelly.

  98. 98.

    Bobbie.

  99. 99.

    ‘Eshe’. Interview with ‘Eshe’, 2008. ‘Gender Dynamix Collection – GAL108’. Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action Archive William Cullen Library, University of the Witwatersrand.

  100. 100.

    Halberstam, 164.

  101. 101.

    Butler, 3.

  102. 102.

    Butler, 3.

  103. 103.

    Ahmed, 37.

  104. 104.

    Alex.

  105. 105.

    Nan Alamilla Boyd, ‘Bodies in Motion: Lesbian and Transsexual Histories’, in The Transgender Studies Reader, ed. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle (New York: Routledge, 2006), 430.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. African Centre for Migration and Society, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    B Camminga

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Camminga, B. (2019). Shifting Borderlands and Becoming a Gender Refugee. In: Transgender Refugees and the Imagined South Africa. Global Queer Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92669-8_4

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