Literature as an Affirmation of Existence

How to Read when Trans People Write Themselves

Abstract

How to approach literature written by trans people? What are the factors that must be taken into account when we read texts written from a lack of cultural references that silences a subaltern collective? In the European literary canon, as well as in the rest of Western cultural manifestations, the presence of trans people and the reflection on the experiences that lead to gender dissidence are practically nil. The threat posed by the existence of such people for the stability of the sex-gender system that operate our society through the binary of gender has led to trans people being persecuted and their voices historically silenced. The few representations we find of trans subjects respond to negative stereotypes that reinforce the established social system following the logic of foreclosure. The study of the social changes fostered by LGTBI activism, the new currents of feminist and queer theories and the so-called trans studies (which emerged in the nineties in the Anglo-Saxon academic sphere), are some of the knowledge that will influence the way in which the trans collective is self-constructed and must be taken into account when analyzing their texts. The few examples of literary works written by trans people that circulate in our state respond to the desire to counteract this lack of representation in culture and to affirm a presence that claims to be legitimate and dignified in the face of the hegemonic discourse. The creation of new stories and paradigms where trans is possible are mixed in these works with the construction of the self through the process of writing. Three examples of different origin and outreach ―Transito, by Ian Bermúdez; El bebé verde, by Roberta Marrero; and El despiste de Dios, by Diego Neria―, will serve as a starting point to analyze the use of literature as a space of affirmation and to understand where trans people write from and through what discourses we can read them.