This book tracks the conceptual journeying of the term ‘transgender’ from the Global North—where it originated—along with the physical embodied journeying of transgender asylum seekers from countries within Africa to South Africa and considers the interrelationships between the two. The term 'transgender' transforms as it travels, taking on meaning in relation to bodies, national homes, institutional frameworks and imaginaries. This study centres on the experiences and narratives of people that can be usefully termed 'gender refugees', gathered through a series of life story interviews. It is the argument of this book that the departures, border crossings, arrivals and perceptions of South Africa for gender refugees have been both enabled and constrained by the contested meanings and politics of this emergence of transgender. This book explores, through these narratives, the radical constitutional-legal possibilities for 'transgender' in South Africa, the dissonances between the possibilities of constitutional law, and the pervasive politics/logic of binary ‘sex/gender’ within South African society. In doing so, this book enriches the emergent field of Transgender Studies and challenges some of the current dominant theoretical and political perceptions of 'transgender'. It offers complex narratives from the African continent regarding sex, gender, sexuality and notions of home concerning particular geo-politically situated bodies.

本书追踪了 "变性人 "一词在概念上的旅行--它起源于全球北方--以及变性人寻求庇护者从非洲国家到南非的身体体现的旅行，并考虑了这两者之间的相互关系。变性人 "一词在旅行中发生变化，具有与身体、国家家园、机构框架和想象力有关的意义。这项研究的中心是通过一系列生活故事的采访，收集那些可以被称为 "性别难民 "的人的经验和叙述。本书的论点是，性别难民的离开、越境、抵达和对南非的看法，既被这种变性人的出现的有争议的意义和政治所促成，又受到限制。本书通过这些叙述，探讨了南非 "变性人 "的激进的宪法-法律可能性，宪法法律的可能性与南非社会中普遍存在的二元 "性/性别 "的政治/逻辑之间的不协调。这样一来，本书丰富了新兴的变性人研究领域，并挑战了目前对 "变性人 "的一些主流理论和政治看法。它提供了来自非洲大陆的关于性、性别、性行为和关于特定地缘政治机构的家园概念的复杂叙述。