This article explores the contents and differential traits of (a) trans* epistemology, as a way to contribute to a dialogue fundamental both from a scholarly perspective and from the point of view of trans* advocacy. The first section offers a brief introduction to trans* studies, highlighting some key aspects in relation to an epistemology rooted in philosophical reflection. The second section presents some of the main critiques trans* scholars have advanced in relation to the processes of knowledge production and its products. The section then moves on to some of the field's main constructive proposals in this respect. The third section builds on the concept of “cis” and “cissexism” to offer considerations on the nuanced relationship between critique and positive contributions, and on the resistance on the part of cis people to being named as such. Finally, the work offers some closing remarks in relation to the specificity and challenges of (a) trans* epistemology.

This article explores how the recognition of the gender identity of trans people can have negative consequences on their reproductive health and rights. First, it argues that, while both the right to gender identity and the right to sexual and reproductive health are part of the indivisible core of human rights, in practice trans people are forced to choose between them. Understanding this scenario requires focusing on the eugenic dimensions of trans policies, even in states where the recognition of a gender identity other than that assigned at birth is not tied to surgical or hormonal compromises. The concept of "passive eugenics", coined over twenty years ago by James Bowman, offers a valuable key in this respect. Second, the paper highlights some factors that hinder a successful approach to the reproductive health and rights of trans people. These factors include: the normative imageries about the reproductive capacities and desires of trans people, representations about pregnancy and "womanhood", and the form taken by identity politics in contemporary feminist movements. The attention given as a priority (if not exclusively) to initiatives for the legalisation of voluntary abortion, understood as a right pertaining to (cis) women, offers a significant example of these difficulties. Finally, the paper advocates the adoption of a reproductive justice approach to work on sexual and reproductive health and rights, arguing that it has, among other virtues, that of challenging the binary matrix that characterises Western thought.

The article examines the convergence of identity politics and punitivism, two tendencies that profoundly affect current LGBT activism and state criminal policies. It considers the case of Argentina, a country often deemed exemplary in terms of gender-related legislation, and analyses a 2018 sentence that incorporates the concept of ‘travesticide’ in order to examine how the role of identity in political strategies, added to prevailing notions of gender, limits the possible approaches and answers to violence against gender non-conforming communities. It then takes this a step forward to understand how these answers are, in turn, often reduced to punitivist outcomes, narrowing the understanding of reparation and exposing the most vulnerable subjects in the community to further violence. As a contribution to Queer Criminologies, the article seeks to expose the limitations of identity politics, and in particular of its advocacy for gendered rights, showing how they can force gender non-conforming subjects to choose between rights, most notably between legal recognition of their gender identity, and safety vis-à-vis the state apparatus of criminal justice.

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Despite a recent wave in global recognition of the rights of transgender and gender-diverse populations, referred to in this text by the umbrella label of trans*, international law continues to presume a cisgender binary definition of gender — dismissing the lived realities of trans* individuals throughout the world. This gap in international legal recognition and protection has fundamental implications for health, where trans* persons have been and continue to be subjected to widespread discrimination in health care, longstanding neglect of health needs, and significant violations of bodily autonomy.