Transnationalism?

The Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan reading entitled, “Global Identities: Theorizing Transnational Studies of Sexuality” discussed a number of definitions or understandings of the word, “transnational”. Prior to this reading, my understanding of transnationalism was as a movement which sought to loosen boundaries between countries, emphasizing culture versus boundaries and also to draw on peoples connectivity as a whole. However, this article spoke about transnationalism in no less than five different applications and emphasized the limits of transnationalism in that it creates binaries which do not allow a discussion about sexuality that might be intersectional. While this took up the bulk of the article, what was most interesting to me was what the authors had to say about gender and sexuality.
The statement that, “Gender and sexual difference have become understood as attributes of bodies unmarked in any other way, despite copious evidence that all of these modern identities are interconnected.”(Grewal and Kaplan, p. 572) This again, reminded me of the concept of intersectionality. I am not sure but I believe this statement suggests that one’s sexuality or experience is molded not only by their sexual encounters and anatomy, but also by that person’s social and cultural environment. I think the article was saying that in a transnational frame, sexuality should be thought of in terms of the the culture as well as the moment. Although the language of the article was easier than past articles, I think my unfamiliarity with the concept of transnationalism is making it difficult for me to get to the core of the article.