Transgenderism in Latin America: Some Critical Introductory Remarks on Identities and Practices

Abstract

This opening essay to a symposium on Transgenderism in Latin America reviews the six articles presented, and highlights the ways in which transgendered acts provide multiple meanings. Drawing heavily from Queer Theory, the article seeks to open a dialogue across these multiple and contested meanings by highlighting mutual themes concerned with heteronomative domination and subversion, the power relations within transsexual practices, and their linkages with identity and its discontents. The paper argues for more subtle and nuanced understandings of varying perspectives and practices, and further challenges any notion of a unitary identity. The author sees this work as part of an ongoing carnival to challenge and redraw fixed notions of identities and relationships.