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Trauma, Ontological Exile, and the Trans Self: Reading Transgender Autobiographical Narratives from the Global South

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Published: Nov 23, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/dia.43470
Keywords:
ontological exile transgender trauma autobiographical narratives transgender existential displacement politics of unbelonging
Vineetha Anitha Vineshkumar
PhD., Scholar, Department of English and Cultural Studies CHRIST University, Bengaluru, India
Kekhronguu Dazo
PhD., Assistant Professor, Department of English and Cultural Studies, CHRIST University, Bengaluru, India
Abstract

Scholarly understanding of exile usually foregrounds the forced displacement of human beings from one geographical location to another due to war, violence, or fear of persecution. However, exile is also a psychological state of being caused by external factors that need not necessarily be limited to the physicality of dislodgement from a sense of home. This paper explores exile as an ontological condition informed by experiences of trauma, selfhood, and marginalisation from the vantage point of transgender lived experiences from India. The philosophical engagement of these ideas is exemplified by the autobiographical work of a transgender woman, A. Revathi, titled The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story. The paper facilitates dialogues between narrativising trauma, psychological exile, and the trans self-using interdisciplinary frameworks of Paul Ilie, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edward W. Said, Judith Butler, Cathy Caruth, Sara Ahmed, and Shoshana Felman to examine the interconnection between thoughts on trauma, testimony, inner exile, lived experiences, queer phenomenology, and gender performativity. The study observes that the reclamation of transgender selfhood emerges through the act of self-narration. It also reimagines exile and trauma as philosophical processes of self-awareness and becoming.

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