ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Halberstam's and Nobles emphasis on the unintelligible and incoherent as possible ways to affirm the alterity of trans identities. It explores the limits of that position in terms of its ability to transform the unethical practice of securing coherent and intelligible selves for non-trans bodies by abjecting trans bodies. The chapter examines the alternative ethical practice, developed by Kristeva, Butler, Shildrick, and Sullivan, is based on confronting the threatening response to others and acknowledging the vulnerability that ensues from that confrontation. It explores the compelling arguments that have been made for recognizing the desire at work in multiple forms of what Sullivan calls becoming other, arguments that complicate the issue of whether one could ever settle on intelligibility or its other side. Scheman argues that both the desire to the normative center and the desire to position oneself outside of it imply acceptance of the structures of normalization and occlude their historical construction and contestability.
