I am an interdisciplinary scholar with a strong committment to bridging the gap between theory and practice. I was an European Research Council-funded Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Amsterdam and a Visiting Scholar at the University of the West Indies at St. Augustin Campus in Trinidad and Tobago. I was also a Research Affiliate with Amsterdam Centre for Research on Gender and Sexuality, University of Amsterdam and a Research Fellow at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Prior to joining the University of Glasgow in 2023, I was an Assisstant Professor of Gender Studies and Critical Theory at Utrecht University. 

I am one of the founding members of the Glasgow Lab for Intersex, Non-binary and Trans Studies (GLINTS). I also serve as the college representative for the Race Equality Group (REG) and the LGBT+ Equality Group, two university-wide equality groups. I am also the series editor for the newly launched Anthem Impact in Gender and Sexual Diversity. https://anthempress.com/books?series=396&ordering=-books_definition__publishing_date

At Glasgow, I mainly teach courses on gender and sexual diversity and research methods at PGT level. 

My research interests and expertise concern gender and sexual diversity, masculinities, transgender and intersex studies, heterosexualities, race and ethnic relations, body politics, decolonization, postcolonial studies, cricket, higher education studies, reparation movement and global inequalities in knowledge production. 

I am the author of ' Beyond emasculation: Pleasure and power in the making of hijra in Bangladesh' (Cambridge University Press 2021). https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009037914. This project not only challenges the dominant representation of hijras as either a third gender or a form of transgender but also the phallogocentric logic that obscures alternative sites and sources of bodily power and pleasure, emphasizing how hijras craft their own subject position. This book proposes the hijra as a counter-cultural formation that embodies not only a direct contrast to hegemonic patterns of masculinity but also an alternative subculture offering the possibility of varied forms of erotic pleasures and practices otherwise forbidden in mainstream society. 

Badhai: Hijra-Khwaja Sira-Trans Performance across Borders in South Asia, a second book, http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350174566 based on the same research was published with Methuen Drama, 2022 (An imprintg of Bloomsbury Publishing). This collaborative project, drawn from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, examines the diverse ways in which practitioners negotiate present contexts, enact genealogies and mobilize, different, if not competeing futurities. With its focus on performance, interdisciplinary perspectives and trans-regional treatment, this book responds to the existing India-centricity within the field of hijra, queer and trans scholartship in South Asia by foregrounding muslim traditions that have an important hand in forming transnational networks of relationality within and between all three countries. 

Current research projects

I am currently serving as the Principal Investigator for two public facing interdisciplinary research projects with a strong impact component. 

‘Transforming politics: Strengthening trans political activism and leadership in the global south’ (2024-2026) funded by OSF seeks to advance a deeper understanding of the challenges transgender and gender-diverse politicians face, the conditions that enable them to thrive, and the concessions they make to survive in politics. As part of this project, I organised a major international conference at Glasgow in June 2025 with trans politicians and academics from Brazil, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Columbia, UK and India as resource persons. The conference focused on trans people's political participation and leadership building issues. A concrete outcome of the conference was the establishment of a new network. This network is now working towards building a global academy for trans leadership with Glasgow sociology as the focal point for this initiative. Four national level research reports are being prepared by activist-scholars on the situation of trans people's participation and leadership in the political process under my supervision. These collaborative research projects will form the basis for a global report for advocacy to promote trans leadership and mobilise resources to further support trans people in politics. This final report is expected to be launched at the WD2026 (Women Deliver Conference 27-30 April 2026) in Australia to strategize, connect and take action for a just feminist and trans future. Two other edited volumes are also expected to emerge out of this project in the coming days.

     Trans people in politics in the global south conference, Glasgow 2025

‘Countering anti-(trans)gender politics in Asia’ (2025-2027) supported by Global Fund for Women

Whilst there has been a recent wave of scholarship and activism addressing the rising anti-gender politics (Butler 2024),  the primary focus of this body of work has been on Euro-America and the Latin American contexts with the Asian region remaining relatively overlooked and undertheorized. This lack of attention to Asia has significant implications for how we can understand, approach and counter global anti-gender politics. After all, Asia has a long history of institutionalized gender pluralism (Peletz 2009) that has been and continues to be simultaneously celebrated and resented. Adopting critical regionality (Johnson, Jackson and Herdt 2000)  and Asia as a method (Chen 2010) as analytical vantage points, the project seeks to address this gap via critical, creative and artistic scholarship and activism. 

Anti-(trans)gender politcs in Asia cluster at ICAS conference, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand, 2025

Media and selected public engagement activities and interviews

2022 Interviewed by Feminism in India, an award-winning digital platform promoting feminism in India and South Asia for my first book. https://feminisminindia.com/2022/08/05/fii-interviews-adnan-hossain-author-of-beyond-emasculation-pleasure-and-power-in-the-making-of-hijra-in-bangladesh/

2021 Interviewed by The Economist for an article on non-binary gender identities in South Asia for the article “Name dropping: South Asia’s non-binary communities worry about losing their identity,” published September 18.  https://www-economist-com.proxy.library.uu.nl/asia/2021/09/16/south-asias-non-binary-communities-worry-about-losing-their-identity

2020: “(Re)thinking the hijra subject in Bangladesh: Paradoxes of Legal recognition and social development.” Paper presented at webinar SOGI Identities in Muslim contexts, Canadian High Commission, Dhaka, October 29.

2020: Invited public lecture on gender and sexual diversity in South Asia as part of Belmundo festival on Gender in de blender, Ghent municipality,  Belgium, March 4.

2019: At the second LSE-UC Berkeley Bangladesh Summit interview on the place of the Hijras historically in Bangladesh, the significance of recent legal changes to their place in Bangladeshi society, and their status across the region. Available online at https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2019/04/02/lse-uc-berkeley-bangladesh-summit-2-interview-adnan-hossain/

Research groups

• Sociology

List by: Type | Date

2025: Principal Investigator. Countering anti-(trans)gender politics in Asia. Total amount £ 132723. Funded by GFW. 

2024: Principal Investigator. Transforming politics: Strengthening trans political activism and leadership in the Global South. Total amount £ 141955. Funded by OSF. 

2024: Personal Research Allowance. Total amount £2000. Funded by School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow.

2022: Climate-change Induced Immobility (CLIMO): Investigating the Historical, Socio-cultural, and Political Interlinkages (With Bishawjit Mallick & Ajay Bailey). Total amount € 10,000. Funded by Utrecht University.

2022: Travel and conference award. Total amount € 2500. Funded by Utrecht University. 

2021: “Intersex justice in South Asia: A comparative review” (with Prashant Singh & Nikoletta Pikramenou), funded by WFD (Westminster Foundation for democracy). Total amount: £10,000. 

2021: Project Co-Director. Contract from the Canadian High Commission in Bangladesh to develop a research summary and policy suggestions for the Canadian LGBTQ advocacy plan in Bangladesh. December 2020-May 2021. Value of contract: $8000. 

2020: “Trans and hijra lives in times of Corona” in the Netherlands and Bangladesh, funded by ShareNet International. Total award €20,000. 

2020: Seed grant for the project “Towards a Better Future: Developing an Alternative Analytical and Methodological Approach of Marginalization, Indigeneity, and Development in (post-) Covid South Asia” (with Ellen Bal & Marina De Regt), funded by the Institute for Societal Resilience, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Total award €10,000. 

2018: NUFFIC OKP: STITCH: SRHR Tailor-made information and training to contribute to occupational health and safety conditions of factory workers in the ready-made garments sector in Bangladesh. Orange Knowledge Programme, Institutional Collaboration Projects, Project number OKP-ICP-BGD-103153; Total award €897,645. With Ellen Bal and Runa Laila at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. 

2018: ISR (Institute for Societal Resilience) seed grant at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam to write a proposal (with Ellen Bal). Total amount €10,000. 

2018: Seed grant for writing a research proposal at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Amsterdam. Total amount €2,500.

2017: Seed grant for writing a research proposal at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Total amount €2,500.

2011: Conference Travel Grant, Graduate School and the Department of Social Sciences Grant, University of Hull. Total amount £1,000.

2008: Departmental PhD Bursary, the Department of Social Sciences, University of Hull.

PhD supervision information

I am interested in receiving expressions of interest from potential doctoral students in the following thematic areas.

Gender and sexual diversity including global heterosexualities, trans and intersex studies 

Race and ethnic relations, body politics and nationalism

Decolonization, reparation and higher education

Global inequalities in knowldege production and the social sciences 

Projects focused on 'global south' contexts are particularly welcome. 

PhD examinations

* External examiner for Nashia Ajaz, Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam, 9th February, 2022. Beyond the father and family: A feminist ethnographic study on early marriage decision making, Women's empowerment and gender equality in Rural Pakistan. 

* External examiner for Suborna Camellia, Radboud University, 1st July, 2024. Walking a fine line: Navigating Middle-class paradoxes of sexuality, gender and belonging by Dhaka's youth. 

* External examiner for Maliha Mohsin, Department of Gender Studies, Central European University. 25 March, 2025. Islamic hermeneutics in Sufi ritual by Hijra muslims in Bangladesh (PhD comprehensive examination).

Past supervision of visiting doctoral students

* Nosheen Rana. A study of psotcolonial ecomasculinity in the selected anglophone Pakistani fiction. Department of English, National University of modern languages, Islamabad. Rana was a visting doctoral scholar under my supervision from May 2023-May 2024, at the Department of media and culture at Utrecht University funded by the foreign research support initiative program (IRSIP), Higher education commission, Islamic republic of Pakistan. 

I coordinate and teach gender diversity, a PGT level course in the second semester. During 1st semeter, I mostly co-teach courses on research methods and media studies. 

Fellowships

2021–2023: Academy in Exile Fellowship, Freie Universität Berlin and Forum Transregionale Studien. DECLINED.

2017–2020: Visiting Scholar, Amsterdam Centre for Research on Gender and Sexuality, University of Amsterdam.

2015: Visiting Scholar, Institute for Gender and Development Studies, the University of West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.

2009: Post-conference Visiting Scholar Fellowship at the International Association for the Study of Sexuality Society and Culture VII Conference on “Contested Innocence – Sexual Agency in Public and Private Space”, Hanoi, Vietnam.

2009: Visiting Scholar Fellowship for Research on LGBT rights in Bangladesh for Universal Periodic Review funded by the Sexual Rights Initiative at the Human Rights Council, United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland.

2007: Visiting Fellowship at The Regional Institute on Sexuality, Society and Culture, The South and Southeast Asia Resource Centre on Sexuality and Institute for sexuality and Gender (IGS) Renmin University of China, Beijing.