Liminal (trans)formative spaces: A temporary escape from intersectionality

Abstract

This paper is an examination of identity narratives of a small group of trans-national transpeople in Australia. We reveal the complex identity journey undertaken by this group. Transpeople of Sub-continental origin consume a temporarily transformational journey negotiating, resisting and subverting the dominant discourses that construct heterosexuality, gayness, whiteness and femininity. They carve out temporary liminal spaces of resistance within which to perform as “weekend women.” We identify transforming, transitioning, transcending across gender and ethnic boundaries, and see being enabled by specific transnational consumption imaginaries in liminal spaces meshed by intersectional of race/ethnicity and gender. We follow intertwined discourses that forms a “matrix of domination” and the way liminal thirdspaces create temporarily decolonized spaces that enable them to escape this matrix and perform a (trans)formative, movement back and forth between their weekday/weekend differently gendered/cultured selves. Ultimately, these decolonized thirdspaces bring only temporary release with inevitable return to their weekday male identity.