Modern notions of war and conflict are distinct from the traditional image of war as one no longer sees armies of men and horses facing each other on battlefields. However, what remains common is the presence of violence in both the scenarios. A study of existing literature on the intersection of gender and conflict shows that, violence is an act of proving one's masculinity. Violence remains central to the power dynamics that establish men and masculine traits as the wielder of power; the reason why displays of machismo are enacted through violence against women who are associated in a conflict situation with target males. With shifts in war fronts in modern times owing to the powerful cultural, political and economic forces of globalisation, violence and its execution is often covert.
Studying the intersection of conflict, violence with its many enactments and gender leads one to arrive at a hierarchy of vulnerabilities. When one takes into consideration the navigation of the mundane, one finds that non-binary identities often find themselves in a situation that is disadvantaged and compromised on multiple levels. An earlier interaction with the trans community in Kerala, India during a part of an ethnographic investigation, laid bare the complexities that exist in terms of the interaction of the community with the alleged mainstream society. An observation that was recurrent was the persistent use of violence as a tool to gender police, with the community internalising it. Against this backdrop, this paper examines how non-binary, especially trans people navigate spaces of conflict when violence and trauma are so commonplace for them in setups where there is no ongoing active conflict.
