Reimagining a Transgender-Inclusive Bangladesh in the Wake of the July 2024 Uprising

This essay offers a set of reflections on the possibilities of societal accommodation and political inclusion of transgender persons in the wake of the July 2024 uprising in Bangladesh that led to the usurpation of the world's longest-serving female prime minister. The fall of the regime spawned new hope and possibilities for reimagining a pluralistic Bangladesh inclusive of various marginalized and underprivileged communities including transgender persons. However, despite opening transgender issues to debate, there is very little room for optimism at this juncture, as Bangladesh is far from supporting the inclusion of transgender persons. Rather, the growing antitransgender sentiment can be seen as the continuation of a newly minted antitransgender politics that has been gaining ground for the last two to three years in Bangladesh. The moral legitimation of this antitransgender politics is premised on a deliberate conceptual and ideological linking of homosexuality with transgender identities. Importantly, antitransgender politics in Bangladesh is part of a globally and regionally circulating antitransgender politics and should not be dismissed as having roots in local Islam alone. The picture that emerges is one of various exclusionary mechanisms that continue to demonize and sideline gender- and sexually diverse communities despite the promise of a new social contract and political arrangement in post-2024-uprising Bangladesh.