SOAS Research Online

Abstract

I argue that a decolonial perspective on ‘gender’ means conceptualizing it as always already trans. My object of investigation is ‘gender’ as a category and ‘gender studies’ as a field of knowledge. In order to discuss what decolonizing trans/gender studies in Europe could mean, I aim to bring different strands together that have been held apart so far: resistance against global attacks on gender studies, resistance against transphobic feminism, and the ‘decolonising the curriculum’ movement in the UK. A critical focus on Eurocentric knowledge and truth claims means to define ‘Europe’ as a complex set of geopolitical, historical and epistemological processes and not just as a neutral location. At British universities, a mostly student-led movement has started to emerge that fights for decolonizing higher education. This movement is inspired by transnational student activism like Rhodes/Fees must fall in South Africa and calls for challenging racist, colonialist, nationalist and neoliberal paradigms in knowledge production by addressing both issues of epistemology and access to higher education. Applying central political claims of the ‘decolonising the curriculum’ movement, I explore potentials and challenges of the task of ‘decolonizing’ trans/gender studies in Europe/the Global North. With this, my intervention opens up a discussion on how to conceptualize knowledge on ‘transgender’ with a central focus on decolonial and transnational perspectives.