Beyond Borders: Understanding Transgender Activism Around the World

When someone is asked about transgender activism, they might think of the Stonewall riots or Laverne Cox or the resistance to proposed bathroom bills in states like North Carolina and Virginia. Social movements for transgender rights have been gaining momentum and winning political victories around the world, but unfortunately much of the public discussion and understanding of what it means to be transgender has focused only on the United States. When we limit our focus in this way, and when we seek out only what we are already familiar with, we begin to universalize and oversimplify the lives and desires of transgender people. Instead, we must recognize that the experiences of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex folk vary widely across time and space, and particularly across different international contexts. Around the world, there is a host of activism occurring that often goes unnoticed or unrecognized. In order to build a more inclusive and sustainable movement for social justice, advocates and allies should understand transgender experiences in a broader international context. Especially in a time of divisive politics, it is important to try and transcend the borders that separate us and listen to one another’s experiences as an act of solidarity and a reminder of our collective struggle towards justice.

Understanding local histories and cultures is a crucial step to understanding modern activism and politics. For instance, throughout South Asia there is extensive cultural history of gender variance outside of the Westernized conceptions of a gender binary. Faris A. Khan details some of this history in “‘Transgender’ Activism and Transnationality in Pakistan,” specifically tracing evidence of the existence of khwaja sira, or people assigned male at birth who express gender ambiguity, back to medieval times. While transgender social movements are often considered a “new” phenomenon in the United States due to increased visibility in recent years, scholars and advocates like Khan show the history of transgender and gender nonconforming folk who have existed for centuries. Much of this history may feel inaccessible partially as a result of colonial attempts to impose Western understandings of binary gender identity under colonialism. Khan notes that hijras were accepted members of society and of the cultural history of Pakistan until British colonial rulers criminalized their behavior and appearance in the 1960s. At the same time, many of these people may not self-identify their gender variant identities within transgender history, as Khan explains that terms like transgender are again associated with “Euro-American” understandings of gender and activism.

In fact, part of the reason it may be so difficult to understand the movement for transgender rights outside of the U.S. is due to the language and terminology of transgender activism. Much like human rights, transgender and LGBT rights carry a distinctly Western connotation. In “Who Speaks for the Human in Human Rights?,” WD Mignolo traces the history of human rights from Western Enlightenment thinkers and says that “Western imperial knowledge controls the concept of human.” Historically, Mignolo and other decolonial scholars say, the language of human rights was devised primarily from a Western perspective and has historically been used by imperial powers as a way of exerting control and dominance over other countries. Because of this, rejecting the language or forced imposition of human rights is often considered a form of radical activism and rejecting further Western imperialism.

Some organizations and activists have tried to combat this problem by creating a new terminology for transgender rights. OutRight Action International is an organizational arm of the UN that focuses on gay, lesbian, and transgender advocacy around the world, and eschews the acronym LGBT for SOGI, or “sexual orientation and gender identity.” The reason for this is two-fold. For one, it addresses gender identity and sexual orientation as distinct categories, which is a common critique of LGBT as an acronym that conflates the needs of gay and lesbian populations with the needs of transgender and gender nonconforming populations. It helps ensure that the T of LGBT will not be left behind or put on the back burner to prioritize other movements first. Secondly, it avoids imposing the Westernized language and concept of LGBT rights onto other cultures and is often associated with harmful neoliberal agendas. Instead, SOGI is inclusive of a variety of gender identities around the world that may not self-identify as transgender. After all, as Paisley Currah asks, “what does it mean to embrace a term such as transsexual or transgender that is not culturally recognized in one’s own community?”

There is also the simple reality that translation is a difficult job, and is made even more so when trying to apply a category of social identity to entirely different cultures. For instance, in the WHO’s attempts to classify gender nonconformity or transgender identities, word choice can bring about unique cultural stigmas. While they at one point considered using the English term “gender incongruence,” Pam Belluck writes in the New York Times that a Spanish translation revealed that incongruence became something closer to “psychotic” and decided against it. Paying attention to differences in translation and cultural exchange are important to understanding differences in varying stigmas and discrimination faced by gender nonconforming folk around the world. Furthermore, there is not only a language gap in struggles towards gender justice, but a gap between those who are able to access that justice and those who are not. When a policy finally is put in place to protect transgender rights, we should be conscientious and critical of who has the knowledge, education, wealth, or social status to make use of those rights. Recognizing as Currah does that “changes in law do not necessarily produce the same benefit for everyone,” activists must be conscientious to educate ourselves on a variety of other identities, perspectives, cultures, and histories to build a more intersectional and inclusive form of transgender activism.

Similarly, it is important to recognize how differences in experience create differences in the goals and objectives of transgender activism. While transgender activism in the United States may focus on access to physical spaces such as bathrooms or rights to healthcare, for much of the rest of the world a primary goal remains the depathologization of transgender identities before moving on to any other legislative or cultural goals. For decades, the WHO has listed gender variant identities and “gender dysphoria” under the category of mental illnesses in its International Classification of Diseases. The newest issue of the ICD is due out in May 2018, and persistent lobbying by organizations like GATE over the last few years will hopefully remove this pathologizing language.

Still, in a 2017 research report GATE details the ways in which “the pathologization of trans people infringes international human rights law, and leads to a range of human rights violations.” The report goes on to detail some of the ways in which an international understanding of gender variance as a disease has been used to justify institutional and individual abuse and to diminish access to medical services and legal rights. Making ourselves aware of the ways in which international policy affect national policies and understandings of gender variance is one step closer to resisting injustice and enacting policy reform to ensure that basic rights are afforded to transgender folk around the world.

 

It is also important to acknowledge the potentially negative impact foreign intervention can have on transgender activism. Aniruddha Dutta notes some of the harmful impact of NGO intervention in eastern India in “Legible Identities and Legitimate Citzens.” Specifically, Dutta points to HIV and STI detection and prevention programs which require stringent definitions of what it means to be transgender in order to determine its beneficiaries. This can lead to a narrowing of the opportunities for gender nonconformity and institutionalizes and categorizes “transgender” rather than allowing it to be a term for the free and fluid expression and transgression of gender identity. This can be especially harmful, Dutta notes, as it can lead to disruptions and divisions between communities with a variety of gender identities and expressions in the region, including chhalla, kothi, and hijra folk, over who expresses “legitimate” gender variance. Being conscientious of our potential to do harm and mitigating it as best we can is crucial to advancing international movements for gender justice.

While opening our eyes to the resilience of transgender activism in other communities, it is crucial to remember that it is not the job of us as U.S. citizens or outsiders to act as “saviors” for gender variant populations. For all the struggles and challenges noted above, there is hard and important work being done by people and organizations around the world and many victories have already been

won. India allowed transgender folk to register for passports in 2005 and included them in the 2011 census, as well as adding a third gender option to voter registration in 2009. Nepal allowed for a third gender option on government documents in 2007, and Bangladesh allowed transgender voter registration in 2008. Argentina allowed a legal change of gender identity without requiring surgical or hormonal treatment beginning in 2010, and it is also one of the few countries along with Malta, Norway, Denmark, and Nepal that have depathologized transgender identities. Respecting the hard-won successes of these existing social movements is a prerequisite to expressing international solidarity and joining the fight for gender justice.

There is so much to learn from international transgender activism and from the knowledge of transgender folk around the world, and hopefully this article was a helpful introduction to doing so. Understanding a multitude of perspectives allows us to better understand the multitudes of transgender experiences and to understand them as immensely diverse and immensely human. It is an act of solidarity to see and respect and listen to these experiences, and it allows advocates to better combat the wide variety of discrimination, stigmatization, and violence transgender, nonbinary, and intersex folk face. Through this deliberate effort to create a more inclusive conversation surrounding transgender history of activism, maybe next time we’ll be able to think of more than just one celebrity or headline, and consider the many successes and challenges of talented and dedicated people working towards gender justice around the world too.