The legal invisibility of trans identities: Analysis from the perspective of epistemic exclusion and institutional violence

Abstract

The undeniable reality of the lack of explicit legal recognition and identity for trans people, coupled with social, cultural, religious, and transphobic stereotypes and prejudices, inhibits the development of a relevant and prioritized policy for a community considered highly vulnerable. This is evident even in CONPES 4147 of March 26, 2025, which abounds in rhetorical language—sometimes revictimizing them through inappropriate and discriminatory expressions under the guise of inclusion—within the nascent and still incipient National Policy Guaranteeing the Rights of the LGBTIQ+ Population (PNGDP).

There are two essential legal categories for the recognition and visibility of trans people in Colombia: legal exclusion as victims in cases of gender-based violence —including non-binary gender and lethal violence— and structural violence —even when involuntary— exercised by state institutions; both related to a hegemonic biologizing discourse.

This reflective article outlines conceptual and epistemic positions and value judgments regarding this marked and systematic phenomenon, which not only harms human dignity but also affects the habitus of trans people within a hostile society shaped by biomedical and structural rationality that subordinates gender identity, restricts fundamental rights, and perpetuates discrimination, violence, and historical persecution.

Drawing on diverse research sources, including the authors’ doctoral dissertations, the article presents arguments and counterarguments that guide a transdisciplinary gendered narrative, labeled as non-conforming by the hegemonic biomedical paradigm, which exerts real and visible power over the identity conditions of trans people, reproducing their exclusion from their habitus, territory, social interaction, and even their lives.