ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the connections between literary representations of diasporic transnational and transgender movements. Applying the concept of “trans-as-movement” to diaspora fiction, I argue that racialized trans experiences are interwoven with and co-constitutive of the forced movements and coerced migrations of African and Asian diasporas. My attempt to articulate how embodied and tangible experiences of migration relate to transness is based in an implicit critique of how white trans discourse metaphorizes migration without taking into account the embodied and historical implications of racialized diasporas. Overall, this chapter attempts to add to trans of color scholarship by engaging specifically with the interconnections between diaspora and transness through a focus on movement. I focus on literary representations of trans movements undertaken by racialized diasporic people who have experienced histories of forced, coerced, or necessary migration. By analyzing key diaspora novels that include transgender representation, such as Patricia Powell’s The Pagoda (1999), Michelle Cliff’s No Telephone to Heaven (1996), Shani Mootoo’s Cereus Blooms at Night (2009), Jackie Kay’s Trumpet (1998), and Kai Cheng Thom’s Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars (2016), I argue that both “trans” and “diaspora” are overlapping material and historical experiences that relate to one another in complex and contradictory ways.
