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Embracing the Icon: The Feminist Potential of the Trans Bodhisattva, Kuan Yin

2008; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 24; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1527-2001.2009.01051.x

1527-2001

Cathryn Bailey,

Indian and Buddhist Studies

I explore how the Buddhist icon Kuan Yin is emerging as a point of identification for trans people and has the potential to resolve a tension within feminism. As a figure that slips past the male/female binary, Kuan Yin explodes the dichotomy between universal and particular in a way that captures the pragmatist and feminist emphasis on doing justice to concrete, particular lives without becoming stuck in an essentialist quagmire.