Abstract

In this essay, I look at how biopolitical regimes have emerged over the past few decades to produce what I call a non-category of state-induced vulnerability for gender-diverse populations, premised on the proliferation of automated checkpoints like facial recognition and state legal discourses. Through an analysis of Franz Kafka's novel The Trial, I argue that this constitutes an operational logic unable to respond ethically to the transgender body as corporeally embodied.