Abjection and Intersecting Trans Women Identities: Examining “Doing Gender” through Malayalam Movies Ardhanaari and Njan Marykutty

Abstract

The non-confirmation to vexed societal gender norms places trans identities in an abjected state. Media, mainly cinema, plays an indispensable role in shaping, shunning, and promulgating such ideologies. To understand this discourse, the Malayalam films Ardhanaari (2015) and Njan Marykutty (2018) are taken to examine the question of “abjection”, a concept by Kristeva, and “doing gender”, by West and Zimmerman. The study argues that the abjection trans identities face forces them to perform their gender in accordance with cisnormative femininity. The study further argues that trans identities should embrace abjection and employ it as a political tool to disrupt the established hegemonic traditional gender structure and its definitions.