ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sociol.
Sec. Gender, Sex and Sexualities
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2025.1646508
Trans Materialist Critique as Feminist Practice. Learning From a Polemic Against Nonbinary Identities
Provisionally accepted
- Center for Interdisciplinary Women and Gender Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Education, Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This article explores the tensions between trans materialist critique and nonbinary identities, using Kadji Amin’s essay “We Are All Nonbinary: A Brief History of Accidents” (2022) as a point of departure. It asks two guiding questions: How should we understand the relationship between trans and nonbinary identities? And what kind of trans materialism can meaningfully respond to our current political moment? The article focuses on three problematics: (1) the reliance on abstract philosophical critiques of gender identity; (2) the framing of trans and nonbinary identities as objective versus subjective, respectively; and (3) the portrayal of nonbinary identity as emblematic of neoliberal ideology. Drawing on posttranssexual (Susan Stryker, Sandy Stone), travesti (Lohana Berkins, Marlene Wayar), and nonbinary (Eris Young, Travis Alabanza) narratives—as well as critical feminist theory (Judith Butler, Nancy Fraser, Seyla Benhabib, Regina Becker-Schmidt)—the article argues for understanding gender identity claims as situated political practices that are simultaneously subjectively and objectively constituted. It critiques positivist tendencies within trans materialism and challenges polarizing distinctions between trans and nonbinary identities. Ultimately, it builds on Wendy Browns definition of neoliberalism to argue that dismissing nonbinary identities on materialist grounds risks constructing the trans critic as a neutral subject outside power, becoming another site for the hollowing out of democratic practice. The article calls for a trans materialism grounded in self-critical feminist analysis and relational political practice.
Keywords: Trans theory, Non-binary, gender identity, feminist critical theory, Travesti
Received: 13 Jun 2025; Accepted: 25 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Llaveria Caselles. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Eric Llaveria Caselles, llaveriacaselles@tu-berlin.de
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.