Latin American Trans Histories | workshop and roundtables

Roundtable 1: Archives and Riots: Latin American Travesti/Trans Archival Projects | July 7, 2022

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Who is trans or travesti, non-binary or marica? Before these words were invented, how did gender-variant Latin Americans understand themselves? How can scholars of various identities most usefully engage with archives, art, and activism?

The interdisciplinary field of Transgender, Trans, or Trans* Studies has begun to cohere in the past two decades, as a distinct terrain from Queer, LGBTQ+, Women’s, and Feminist Studies. Scholars working in history, literature, the social sciences, and beyond have produced a professional journal, an international congress, textbooks, monographs, edited volumes, and related panels at disciplinary conferences. As in other identity-based fields, scholars and activists have engaged in ongoing collaborations and debates, including a critique of imbalances in research agendas, such as Anglo-centrism. While much of the field has evolved in English and focused on US and European cases, often prioritizing literary analysis, Latin American scholars have also been scouring archives to expand the empirical and multilingual base of historical study. Intrepid archivists, such as those working on Trans Memory projects, have begun to make personal collections available more broadly. Travesti theorists and activists, as well as non-binary and intersex voices, have expanded questions, sources, and debates.

Across two days of virtual panels and roundtables, this virtual workshop brings together scholars, artists, archivists, and activists from countries across the Americas to collaborate on these questions and develop new ones. By giving emerging and more established scholars a place to share their work, in conversation with archivists and trans activists, this event intends to advance the development of Latin American Trans History as a distinct field, with shared and debated methodological, theoretical, and empirical approaches to travesti, transgender, transsexual, non-binary and intersexual experiences.

**Please note this event will be held in English and Spanish and is fully online. Links to the different components of the event (workshops, roundtables, the closing music show, etc.) will be shared with registered attendees in due course. **

Workshop participants:

• Andrés Mendieta (UNTREF)

• Caio de Souza Tedesco (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil)

• Carina Emilia Guzmán (University of Toronto, Canada)

• Carlos Gustavo Halaburda (University of Toronto, Canada)

• Francisco Fernández Romero (CONICET - Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina)

• Javier Galeano (Universidad de Valencia, Spain)

• Lauri Miranda Silva (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil)

• Magally Alegre Henderson (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Perú)

• Manuel Zelada (University of Ottawa, Canada)

• Marce Butierrez (Universidad Nacional de Salta, Argentina)

• Martín H. González Romero (El Colegio de México, Mexico)

• Michele Pires Lima (Universidade Federal do Amazonas, Brasil)

• Mir Yarfitz (Wake Forest University, USA)

• Giancarlo Saul Mori Bolo (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Perú)

• Patricio Simonetto (University College London, United Kingdom)

Roundtables:

Archives and Riots: Latin American Travesti/Trans Archival Projects

7th July 19:00 - 21:00 (London Time)

Speakers:

• María Belen Correa (Archivo de la Memoria Trans, Argentina)
• Ian Habib (Museu Transgênero de História e Arte, Brazil)
• David Aruquipa Pérez (ARCHIVO Q'iwa, Bolivia)
• Florence Belladonna (Acervo Pajubá / Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil)

Living Trans History

8th July 19:00 - 21:00 (London Time)

Speakers:

• Alba Rueda (Special Envoy of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, Ministry of Forgein Affairs, International Affairs and Worship, Argentina)
• Siobhan Fenella Guerrero Mc Manus (México, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)
• Cole Riski (University of Virginia, United States of America) 

Closing session: an evening of music with Mocchi

The organisers are very pleased to announce that Uruguayan singer Mocchi has kindly agreed to share their art with attendees as a fitting closing session after the last roundtable of this event. If you are interested in attending this session, please choose the appropriate option via the main registration link above.

This event is co-organised by Mir Yarfitz (Wake Forest University) and Patricio Simonetto (University College London), and it is co-sponsored by Wake Forest University, Institute of Advanced Studies (UCL), the Institute of the Americas, QUCL, and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Project “Was sex inflexible?” (886496).

Latin American Trans Histories has its own dedicated website (find it here) with more information about this event and an invaluable archive of trans group and individual testimonies and an online exhibition.

Links:

Mocchi  |  Instagram profile

Dr Mir Yarfitz | academic profile

Dr Patricio Simonetto | academic profile

Wake Forest University | website

Institute of Advanced Studies | website

QUCL |  website

Image:

[top] Composite photograph showing, from l to r, a scene of a demonstration in favour of trans rights and the image of a trans dancer in cabaret attire; the latter courtesy of the Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina

[bottom] Logos of the event's five co-sponsoring institutions. From l to r: Wake Forest University, UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL Institute of the Americas, Queer UCL QUCL, and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions project