A State Affair?: Notions of the State in Discourses on Trans Rights in Sweden

Abstract

Departing from previous scholarly work that has studied the effects of state violence and conditional state recognition on the living conditions of gender-variant people (Beauchamp 2019; Linander 2018), this chapter explores the function of narratives of the state in discourses on trans rights in Sweden. It provides insights into the relation between state and civil society, and the practicalities of governance, through an examination of how activists interpellate the state and hold it accountable. With a critical inquiry into the hegemonic narrative that the Swedish state has a responsibility to alleviate the suffering of gender-variant citizens as a background, it addresses and situates the tension between liberal rights discourses of trans rights on the one hand and transformative politics asking for restorative justice on the other hand (Spade 2011). The argument is that the interpellation of the state can be understood as a strategy to repoliticise the violent effects of governance in times of neoliberalism.