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Emerson Maione
¿Podría existir una política exterior no sólo feminista, sino también transfeminista? ¿Cuáles serían los contornos de dicha política? Partiendo de estas preguntas, este artículo analizará en primer lugar cómo las cuestiones de género han formado parte de las políticas exteriores de los estados, empezando por las políticas exteriores feministas y las cuestiones de orientación sexual e identidad de género. A continuación, incorporaré las perspectivas transfeministas y travestis brasileñas para analizar sus posibilidades de ampliar los debates sobre género en el ámbito de los estudios de política exterior. Estas perspectivas, por ejemplo, amplían la noción de género más allá del binarismo; critican los discursos universalistas sobre las mujeres (en singular), centrándose en las feminidades y feminidades (en plural); reconocen la naturaleza interseccional y entrelazada de las opresiones; destacan la autodeterminación de las trans y travestis a la hora de decidir autónomamente qué hacer con sus cuerpos; reivindican el reconocimiento legal de sus identidades de género y traen alianzas sólidas con el feminismo para enfrentar “la misoginia, el sexismo y el cis-heteropatriarcado que insiste en demarcar la feminidad y la mujer como frágiles, sumisas y matables” (Nascimento, 2021, pp. 179-180). Buscamos, por lo tanto, nuevas preguntas y perspectivas teóricas que amplíen los debates sobre género en las políticas exteriores de los estados. El objetivo es hacerlos cada vez más inclusivos y también aportar nuevos matices analíticos a la hora de prestar atención a la vida de estas personas. Por último, en las reflexiones finales, destacaremos las cuestiones que pueden surgir de estos enfoques políticos y teóricos para el ámbito de la política exterior. Por ejemplo, ¿están dispuestos el estado y sus instituciones, como las cancillerías, tradicionalmente aristocráticas, blancas, masculinas y cisgénero, a abrirse a las personas trans*, negras y ajenas a los círculos de las élites tradicionales? ¿Está la diplomacia abierta a sentarse, dialogar y escuchar a estos grupos en momentos de (de)construcción y aprendizaje colectivos, esenciales para un enfoque interseccional? El objetivo es explorar qué iniciativas podrían adoptarse si profundizamos en la investigación y el diálogo con estos grupos.
Would it be possible a foreign policy that is not just feminist but transfeminist? This article analyzes how gender has been part of states’ foreign policies bringing feminist foreign policies and questions of sexual orientation and gender identities. It uses a qualitative methodology that combines bibliogra-phical analysis and trans* movement activist reports with an emphasis on the Brazilian case to defend the expansion of gender beyond binaries in policy decision making and the alliance, the inclusion and the leadership of trans* people in foreign policy issues. The first part examine the openness of foreign policy to LGBTQIAPN+ rights.It highlights that this openness comes from many places specially from multilateral forums where Global South states has lead this defense. But it starts to concentrate on the famous Hillary Clinton 2011 speech and the critique it received from queer perspectives in International Relations. It brings back this discussion to show how the speech and its critics missed at least one important dimension, transgender people’s rights. So the second part focuses on how to treat transgender rights as a central part of a state’s gender foreign policy. Since Lesbian and Gay rights has received more attention than its fellows it remains the necessity of a substantial engagement with bisexual, trans*, intersex, among others identities’ rights (Hagen and Edney-Browne, 2023, p. 3; Richter-Montpetit, 2017).In this sense, this section aims to demonstrate how questions related to transgenderness can bring new concepts and expand the field of foreign policy analysis. There is an absence of foreign policy studies that has a deep engagement with transgender studies. To this end I engage with transgender studies, in general, and with Brazilian transfeminist and travesti studies and activism, in particular. The aim is to see the uniqueness of this Brazilian perspectives (at the same time that it has many similarities of agendas and demands with others Latin American trans* movements; see Martínez et al., 2021), but also to serve as an illustration of how important it is to engage with trans* authors and movements of the country that you are dealing with.These perspectives, for example, expand the notion of gender beyond binarism; critique universalist discourses about woman (in the singular), centering the feminilities and womanhood (in the plural); recognize the intersectional and imbricated character of the opressions; highlight the self-determina-tion of trans* and travestis to decide over their bodies; demand the legal recognition of their gender identities; and, bring strong alliances with feminism to face the “misogyny, the sexism and the cis-he-teropatriarchy that insist in mark the womanhood and feminilities as fragile, submissive and killable” (Nascimento, 2021, pp. 179-180).The search is for new questions and theoretical perspectives that expand the debates on gender within the state’s foreign policy. It also aims of making it ever more inclusive and that for new analytical nuan-ces be brought to forth when we pay attention to the lives of those people (see Sjoberg, 2015, p. 163). But how can transgender perspectives help to expand the analytical and political possibilities of foreign policy studies? If a country has in some moment interacted with the issue of international LGBTQIAPN+ rights it opens the doors for the use of transgender analytics to enrich the interpretations and critique of a foreign policy.For instance, one can analyze the limits and possibilities of these interactions (are they made within cisheteronormative standards or it aims to question them?); are there strong partnerships with LGBT-QIAPN+ groups of its civil society? Only these can effective and legitimately inform diplomats on their agendas and inform the elaboration of public policies to surpass the many challenges that remains —as it is demanded, for example, on the country reports during the Periodic Universal Review of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. And, crucially, what is the political message of these engage-ments? Does it contain civilizational messages of moral superiority that exceptionalizes this country as modern, inclusive, democratic to the detriment of others that don’t have these rights?These are questions that opens the possibilities for transfeminists analysis. Probing the Brazilian case, I argue that Brazil has a central place on the global politics of LGBTQIAPN+ rights for two reasons. On the one hand, it has been, at least since the late 1990s, a global leader on LGBTQIAPN+ rights (except from 2019-2022 with a far-right government). It has also for more than twenty years enacted public policies and rights for its LGBTQIAPN+ citizens. On the other, it is the country that kills more trans*-people in the world (Antra, 2023). This paradox puts a duty to deal with all the historical and present day legacies of prejudice and discrimination. Since “feminist foreign policy” has been an umbrella term coined to name the adoption of a “gender perspective” I call a “transfeminist foreign policy” to put on the spotlight all the contributions that trans*people can make in dealing with global hierarchies and inequalities. In this way, I highlight some initial points of a research agenda that is necessarily plural and collective. How can Foreign Policy Offi-ces help to deal with racial and gender inequalities that cut across so many issues that affect dispropor-tionally most women (cis and trans) on the Global South?After examining some possibilities in Brazil I finish with some suggestions for future research on trans-feminist foreign policies. First, is to probe if and how is the state and its institutions like the Foreign Affairs agencies, traditionally aristocratic, white, male and cisgender are ready to open themselves to trans*, non-white people to stablish dialogues and listen to these groups in moments of (de) construc-tion and collective learning, that are crucial for a intersectional approach. Are there associations of LGB-TQIAPN + employees? Second, another way to examine gender issues on foreign policy is to analyze if there is a position of a “gender representative” or “LGBTI representative” in the Foreign Office. Third, is to investigate the international incidence of LGBTQIAPN+ NGOs. The crucial thing is to see the differen-ce that the social positioning generated by transgenderness make on political decisions.
