The Only Way Out Is Through: A Trans Tankie Response to Homonationalism

Abstract

This thesis aims to highlight a non-academic theory of international transgender politics in response to narratives of American exceptionalism which justify themselves through trans as well as gay inclusion. Taking up countering these narratives, commonly named as homonationalism, as an urgent task in a moment where they serve to obscure the United States’ rapidly intensifying hostility towards trans people, this thesis engages in a critique of academic responses to homonationalism which prioritize radicality over effectiveness. Identifying these shortcomings with a hostility towards both transsexuality and state socialism, this thesis centers non-academic theorizing to point towards a “trans tankie” approach which locates radical potential in strategic engagement with systems of power rather than attempting to disengage entirely.

This thesis prioritizes the Cold War and anticommunism in a history of homonationalism, attempting to understand it in terms of bargaining and allegiance and reconstruct it not as a totalizing assimilationist discourse, but as a logical system which can be engaged with strategically. Looking at homonationalism in this way suggests that an approach which doubles down on the evaluation of trans and gay inclusion as a marker of national worth, in opposition to American exceptionalism, might be capable of satisfying both short term goals of inclusion and acceptance in the United States and long-term goals of radial social and economic transformation.