Between Inadequacy and Necessity: Mīrājī as First Order Theorist of Trans Studies

This paper is a methodological reflection on the twentieth century genderbending Urdu poet Mīrājī, who reconceptualizes the way religion, literature, and gender fit together. The primary tension animating this paper is: how might a historian resist models of recuperation in service of modern evidentiary standards to prove trans people always existed? I argue that Mīrājī's cultivated illegibility resonates with imaginations looking to surpass legalized and medicalized discourses on transness.