Everyday precarity, oblique hostility and gendered liveability among Malaysian transgender men

ABSTRACT

Although a gamut of sensational issues affecting transgender communities in Malaysia proliferates in academic scholarship and activism reports, and transgender experiences of tragedy and violence are often amplified in the news media, less attention is given to the everyday forms of aggression and vulnerability that transgender people encounter in seemingly innocuous spaces. Guided by a Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology, I analyse selected narratives of three local transgender men to theorize their experiences of ‘oblique hostility’ in Malaysia, or subtle and implicit manifestations of discrimination and harassment that threaten to annul their gendered liveability. I argue that these spaces which initially and ostensibly do not target gender normativity for valid accessibility – such as airport x-ray scanners, road blocks and local Roman Catholic ecclesial communities – are actually implicitly grounded in normative gender expectations and thus perpetuate a condition of precarity for transgender men who struggle for recognizability, dignity and security in their everyday lives. My analysis is framed by Judith Butler’s ideas on precarity as the consequence of exaggerated and protracted state-sanctioned exposure to vulnerability, and Judith/Jack Halberstam’s concept of the bathroom problem writ large, an insightful reference to spatial apparatuses of gendered invigilation that pronounce the (in)validity of gendered lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Bathroom problem
• everyday precarity
• Malaysia
• oblique hostility
• transgender

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia, Internal Research Grant, Project No. 211.

Notes on contributors

Joseph N. Goh

Joseph N. Goh is a Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University Malaysia. He holds a PhD in gender, sexuality and theology, and his research interests include queer and LGBTI studies, human rights and sexual health issues, diverse theological and religious studies, and qualitative research. Goh is the author of numerous publications, including Doing Church at the Amplify Open and Affirming Conferences: Queer Ecclesiologies in Asia (2021), Becoming a Malaysian Trans Man: Gender, Society, Body and Faith (2020) and Living Out Sexuality and Faith: Body Admissions of Malaysian Gay and Bisexual Men (2018).