Reading Between the Lines

Notwithstanding the liberal provisions in the Equality Clause of the South African Constitution, transgender subjects continue to suffer severe prejudice,violence and harassment in their communities. Recent research suggests that this intolerance stems from the manner in which transgender subjects acquired constitutional and legal rights. Thamar Klein (2009) argues, for example, that transgender rights to equality under the Constitution did not come about as a result of broad public awareness or consensus, but were imposed from above through legal and constitutional rights. My study focuses on the current marginalised state of transgender subjects and explores and analyses identity and embodiment as it occurs in autobiography and digital life-stories. I focus on texts such as Trans: Transgender Life Stories (2009), digital life-stories on the websites of Gender DynamiX, Triangle Project as well as other digital sources. I relate these texts to pertinent questions about transgender identity formation. I focus on how such an identity can be constructed in the antagonistic climate of South Africa and foreground issues surrounding individual transgender identity.