My name is Isa Misset, and I did my third year internship for the course Literature and Society at IHLIA. Here, I conducted literary research, in which I applied multiple theories on transgender literature to the novel Tour de Trans by Eus van der Grift, a trans autobiographical travelogue, which I sourced from IHLIA’s catalogue.
My research employs Judith Butler’s concept of cultural intelligibility to reveal the techniques that van der Grift depends upon to render his trans identity recognizable to his readership. To do so, I base myself on trans literary critics, who have formed a broad corpus of analytical frameworks of trans narration and representation in literature and through literature these past few decades.
The notion that trans identity may be deliniated and restricted by the manner in which familiarized narratives are replicated is leading in my analysis of Tour de Trans. Van der Grift’s rejection of these narratives, I argue, belongs to a line of thought surrounding trans narration that privilege neoliberal identity, whether consciously or no. This supports the creation of a new normativity within trans writing, expression and embodiment.
Following this, I show that the neoliberal trans identity in Tour de Trans implicates the oppression of lesser privileged peoples due to van der Grift’s assumption that the experience of trans oppression is comparable to that of refugees. I factor in the role of travel in my analysis of Tour de Trans and apply this to what I understand to be a privileged neoliberal identity that arises out of the narrative.
I hope that this research may open up new avenues of thinking about Dutch transgender literature, which – up until this point – has received little academic attention, but which could render potentially significant insights into the lives of transgender people and the cultures they and their narratives are embedded within. Due to the plethora of trans memoires within the Dutch and Anglophone spheres of trans writing, this genre proliferates in academical analyses.
Further research might be aimed at trans literature(s) that move outside the realm of the memoir and could reflect upon how form and meaning interact to influence societal ideas about trans people. These insights could then, perhaps, be compared to how memoirs have shaped conceptions around trans people. As a starting point of further trans research, I would highly recommend the Routledge Handbook of Trans Literature, as it offers an exhaustive list of all the different genres and styles of trans writing that are already being studied.
