«Trans diasporas», corporeal borders and migratory transit (s) in Mexico

Abstract

In this article, I reflect on how the multiple migratory contexts interfere in the experiences of the «trans diasporas» departing from the Central American regions throughout their transit through Mexico to the imagined «other side». The intersection of the different embodied borders: of sex, of gender, of sexuality, of race, of class, and of migratory status, lead to «trans women» generating ways of inhabiting and signifying the different categories that are assigned to them by other people in their migratory transits: «trans woman», «undocumented», «migrant», «Central American», and that take their meaning from the reading and interpretation they make of the different context(s) of transit. These contexts are characterized by precariousness, where persecution, violence, and abuse frequently occur. The translation and significance that they carry out on the spaces and places that make up these transit contexts are fundamental enclaves that will lead them to perform their gender expressions strategically, in order to achieve social «intelligibility», and thus reduce potentially vulnerable situations. The dynamic construction of corporality will be referential in the subjective negotiations of «trans women», whilst highlighting the rigidity of gender(s) in the multiple phases of their route of transit.