Trans/coalitional love-politics: Black feminisms and the radical possibilities of transgender studies

Abstract

This essay works at the intersection of black feminism and trans studies to reflect on the radical possibilities for the futures of transgender studies and politics. Drawing on ethnographic data with a large-scale LGBTQ service organization, and focusing specifically on an example of the backlash that a black cisgender- and queer-identified woman received for coordinating a transgender-focused event, the article interrogates the ways in which the cisgender/transgender binary, pervasive in trans studies and trans organizing, counterintuitively reinforces the racialized gendered subjugation of black women. To circumvent the subjugation of black feminine bodies and thus harness the radical potential of trans studies and organizing, the author proposes a conception of trans coalitional love-politics. This is a reading and political practice that explodes the cis/trans binary and thus imagines more robust possibilities for racialized gendered justice.