Cross-Cultural Comparability of Queer and Trans: Unpredictable Adaptations from within “the West”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.mut/v16n1a09Keywords:
cross-cultural research, gender terminology, translation, identity politics, gender studiesAbstract
Cross-cultural and cross-language research on gender faces the recurring issue of attachment to Anglophone terminology and Anglo-American voiced experience. Queer and trans in concrete are two concepts that may count with culturally-specific counterparts. However, various power relations operate to silence or marginalize such alternative terms, uses, and pronouncements, either in Academia or even during lay or activist discussions. Such dynamics do not always follow the rigid Western/non-Western divide. The present reflection examines how queer and trans have operated within Castilian Spanish and Modern Greek, in terms of community engagement, gender subjectivation, and
overall linguistic incorporation. For that purpose, this analysis draws upon two specific sociocultural
contexts where the concepts in question have been recently assembled: The discussion about the latest trans bill in Spain in 2021, on one hand, and the murder of Zak Kostopoulos, a prominent queer Greek activist, in 2018, on the other. A brief contextualization of both debates shall shed light on how terminology from sexuality and gender studies has functioned to construct concrete social realities, but also political tensions with reactionary social groups. The comparison of the linguistic uses of queer and trans terminology within these contexts is expected to serve queer research related to translation and cultural adaptation elsewhere.
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