Global Politics and Anti-Trans Moral Panics: Transfeminist Perspectives

Trans people are central to the moral panics promoted by global anti-gender and far-right movements. Opposition to so-called "gender ideology" involves challenges to trans civil rights—to legal gender recognition, gender-affirming healthcare, access to sports and “single-sex” spaces. Research demonstrates the transnational nature of the contemporary far-right (Abrahamsen et al., 2024) and reveals the centrality of "anti-gender" ideology to these mobilisations (Paternotte & Kuhar, 2018). Yet, while the global politics of gender has been analysed from feminist and queer theoretical perspectives, transfeminism remains a nascent approach within political science (Galpin et al., 2023).

We gather contributions that apply a transfeminist lens to studying international politics. Emerging from third-wave intersectional feminism, transfeminism centres trans people, challenging the presumed alignment of maleness/masculinity and femaleness/femininity (Serano, 2013). It also addresses transmisogyny, involving harassment towards people expressing femininity considered to deviate from their assigned sex. Transfeminism is also decolonial, highlighting transphobia’s roots in the consolidation of colonial state power (Gill-Peterson, 2024). Transfeminism crucially demonstrates how transphobia is rooted in wider racialized and patriarchal structures of power and anti-democratic tendencies—the current crackdown on DEI under the Trump administration highlights how opposition to trans rights is situated within wider far-right authoritarian projects.

We invite articles that apply transfeminism to global politics in a broad sense. This includes theoretical pieces that bring transfeminism into conversation with political theory, particularly in the study of the global right, nationalism, democratic erosion, and mechanisms of resistance. We also seek empirical studies from diverse contexts, including the UK and Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America, North Africa, the Middle East, and Central and Subsaharan Africa. We seek studies highlighting the particularities of local/regional/national contexts and those that identify transnational connections. Diverse methodologies are welcome, including surveys, content, discourse, and narrative analysis, focus groups and interviews, and arts-based and feminist methodologies.

References:

Abrahamsen, R. et al. (2024). World of the right: Radical conservatism and global order. Cambridge University Press.

Galpin, C., Gwenffrewi, G., & Stokoe, A. (2023). Transfeminist perspectives: Beyond cisnormative understandings of the digital public sphere. European Journal of Women's Studies, 30(4), 502-515. 

Gill-Peterson, J. (2024). A short history of trans misogyny. Verso.

Paternotte, D., & Kuhar, R. (2018). Disentangling and locating the “global right”: Anti-gender campaigns in Europe. Politics and Governance, 6(3), 6–19. 

Serano, J. (2013). Excluded: Making feminist and queer movements more inclusive. Seal Press.

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