Constructing the nation as cis: Transfeminist perspectives on nationalism in Europe

Trans people – and trans women in particular – have become central to nationalist rhetoric in the UK and across Europe, yet this contemporary phenomenon is poorly explained by existing theories of nationalism. Feminist and queer nationalism scholars have shown how the nation is embodied in gender and sexual binaries that are simultaneously racialised and classed. Hegemonic and subordinated masculinities map on to hierarchies of self/other, nation/migrant, and nation/Europe (e.g. Yuval-Davis, 1997; Peterson, 2001). The idealised and stereotypical figure of the ‘woman’ comes to play a central role in the nationalist imaginary as the biological reproducer of the nation. Yet, while making a significant contribution to advancing our understanding of nationalism, this literature renders invisible cis/trans binaries and hierarchies. This paper demonstrates the way in which a specifically transfeminist perspective can be applied to our understanding of nationalism in Europe. Transfeminism is an under-utilised yet critical lens, revealing the operation of the gender/sex binary in shaping national boundaries (Gill-Peterson, 2024; Muñoz, 2012; Tudor; 2021; Serano, 2013). Crucially for the study of nationalism, transfeminism reveals the disciplining and dehumanisation of those who cross presumably fixed borders, not only between gender/sex but also between nation/outside. The paper introduces concepts including cisnormativity (the unspoken assumption that being cis – having a gender identity that aligns with the one assigned at birth, that is, not being trans – is the norm), cissexism (the idea that cis identities are normal and legitimate, and trans ones are not), and transmisogyny (the intersection of cissexism and misogyny directed at transfeminine people). Specifically, cissexism, cisnormativity, and transmisogyny contribute to the construction not only of subordinate masculinities but also ‘pariah’ femininities, embodied in transfeminine and transfeminized people, who become Othered from the nation and/or Europe. Transfeminist concepts therefore help to understand how the ‘nation’ and ‘Europe’ are constructed in relation to the colonial binaries of masculine/feminine, national/foreign, heterosexual/homosexual, civilised/barbaric, and cis/trans, revealing how contemporary nationalisms construct the citizen and the nation in narrow terms that are not only patriarchal and heterosexist, but cispatriarchal and cisheterosexist.