The Trans*-ness of Blackness, the Blackness of Trans*-ness

TLDR

The essay redefines black and trans* as poetic, para‑ontological forces of lawlessness that precede and underpin racial and gender identities. The author aims to explore how trans* embodies blackness and blackness embodies trans*, examining the implications of this reciprocal relationship while acknowledging that the analysis remains unresolved.

Abstract

The essay thinks radically differently about the concepts of black and trans*. Trans* and black thus denote poetic, para-ontological forces that are only tangentially, and ultimately arbitrarily, related to bodies said to be black or transgender. That is to say, they are differently inflected names for an anoriginal lawlessness that marks an escape from confinement and a besidedness to ontology. Manifesting in the modern world differently as race and gender fugitivity, black and trans*, though pointed at by bodies that identify as black or trans*, precede and provide the foundational condition for those fugitive identificatory demarcations. The author seeks to demonstrate the ways in which trans* is black and black is trans*. In what ways, and to what extent, is there a “blackness” present within “trans*-ness,” and vice versa? What is the effect of these analytics? This essay hopes to address these questions but also leave them suspended in black/trans* liminality.