Trans Feminist Virtue Ethics

An Infrapolitical Queer Theology

Abstract

Increased transgender visibility in recent years has been paralleled by a backlash of increased fatal violence against transgender people, especially Black transgender women. Open resistance strategies centered on visibility should not and cannot be the only options explored as ethical responses to a hostile anti-trans environment. This article constructs a trans feminist virtue ethics that is intentionally not centered on, but is still complimentary with, politics of visibility. This virtue ethics centers the values of survival, an affirming community, and autonomy and the virtue of mutual care. The article concludes by presenting historical examples of the virtue of mutual care being lived out, pointing out the implications of this ethical model for cisgender advocates of trans rights, and presenting the messianic secret theme of the Gospel of Mark as a christological and biblical model of the virtue ethics constructed in the article.