The atmosphere of trans* politics in the Global North and West

Abstract

This essay scrutinizes the conundrum of recent trans* politics in the Global North and West. Although this trans* politics has achieved important social changes for some gender-variant people, it at the same time participates in neoliberal notions of equality. In addition, while constructing a seemingly legitimate subject called transgender, this politics perpetuates colonial violence. This article suggests a turn to atmospheres as a crucial term to reassess this quandary. With a focus on discomfort, this article explores ways to decolonize and deprivilege transnational trans* politics in the Global North and West. It argues that such an approach might open up ways to consider trans* politics as an imaginary that would enable fragmented realities, bodies, and selves to become legible and articulable and thereby also make it possible to name the constitutive violence that is at work in politics under the purview of trans*.