Throwing jabs and cracking eggs: a trans phenomenology of coming forward

In boxing, “coming forward” denotes a boxer’s proactive assertion of presence and agency in the ring. This essay uses the notion of coming forward to anchor a phenomenological inquiry into how the perception of bodily capacity supports the emergence and persistence of trans subjectivity. Drawing on the work of feminist philosopher Iris Marion Young, I offer an analysis of the figure known in trans community parlance as an egg (someone who doesn’t yet know they’re trans), discussing how such a subject comes to perceive transition as a possibility for their particular embodied self. Then, via ethnographic fieldwork with the collective Trans Boxing LA, I discuss boxing’s potential for training an expansive, holistic perception of bodily capacity. Both “throwing jabs” and “cracking eggs,” I argue, are performative processes of coming forward – of coming to understand one’s (trans) body as a viable site from which to meet the world, even within a hostile surround.