![AMT Salta crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/AMT_Salta_crop.jpg)
The term travesti () is used in
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
—to designate people who were
assigned male at birth, but develop a
gender identity
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the ...
according to different
expressions of
femininity
Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as socially constructed, and there is also some evidence that some behaviors considered f ...
. Other terms have been invented and are used in South America in an attempt to further distinguish it from cross-dressing, drag, or pathologizing connotations. In Spain, the term was used in a similar way during the
Franco era, but it was replaced with the advent of the medical model of transsexuality in the late 1980s and early 1990s, in order to rule out negative stereotypes. The arrival of these concepts occurred later in Latin America than in Europe, so the concept of travesti lasted over time with various connotations.
Travesti identities are heterogeneous and multiple, so it is difficult to reduce them to universal explanations. They have been studied by various disciplines, especially
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
, which has extensively documented the phenomenon in both classical and more recent
ethnographies. Researchers have generally proposed one of three main hypotheses to define travestis: that they constitute a "
third gender
Third gender is a concept in which individuals are categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither man nor woman. It is also a social category present in societies that recognize three or more genders. The term ''third'' is usuall ...
" (like the
hijras of India and the
muxe
In Zapotec cultures of Oaxaca (southern Mexico), a muxe (also spelled muxhe; ) is a person assigned male at birth who dresses and behaves in ways otherwise associated with women; they may be seen as a third gender.
Etymology
The Zapotec word ' ...
of Mexico), that they reinforce the
gender binarism
The gender binary (also known as gender binarism) is the classification of gender into two distinct, opposite forms of masculine and feminine, whether by social system, cultural belief, or both simultaneously. Most cultures use a gender binary, ...
of their society, or that they actually
deconstruct the category of
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
altogether. Although it is a concept widely used in Latin America, the definition of travesti is controversial, and it is still regarded as a
transphobic
Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger tow ...
slur depending on the context. Very similar groups exist across the region, with names such as , , , , , , and , among others.
Travestis not only dress contrary to their assigned sex, but also adopt female names and pronouns and often undergo cosmetic practices, hormone replacement therapy, filler injections and cosmetic surgeries to obtain female body features, although generally without modifying their genitality nor considering themselves as women. The travesti population has historically been
socially vulnerable and
criminalized, subjected to
social exclusion
Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. It is used across discipline ...
and
structural violence
Structural violence is a form of violence wherein some social structure or social institution may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs.
The term was coined by Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, who introduced it in hi ...
, with discrimination, harassment,
arbitrary detentions, torture and murder being commonplace throughout Latin America. As a result, most travestis
resort to prostitution as their only source of income, which in turn, plays an important role in their identity. The word "travesti", originally
pejorative
A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
in nature, was
reappropriated
In linguistics, reappropriation, reclamation, or resignification is the cultural process by which a group reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. It is a specific form of a semantic change (i.e. ...
by Peruvian, Brazilian and Argentine activists, as it has a regional specificity that combines a generalized condition of social vulnerability, an association with
sex work
Sex work is "the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers as well as indirect sexual stimulation". Sex work only refers to volun ...
, the exclusion of basic rights and its recognition as a
non-binary
Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...
and
political identity
Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...
. Notable travesti rights activists include Argentinians
Lohana Berkins
Lohana Berkins (15 June 1965 – 5 February 2016) was an Argentine travesti activist.
Biography
Berkins was born on 15 June 1965 in Pocitos, Salta. Her father, a soldier, kicked her out at the age of 13.
In 1994, Berkins founded the Asociac ...
,
Claudia Pía Baudracco
Claudia Pía Baudracco (22 October 1970 – 18 March 2012) was an Argentine activist for the rights of women, sexual minorities, and LGBT people.
Biography
Baudracco was born on 22 October 1970 in La Carlota, Córdoba Province. She spent her ad ...
,
Diana Sacayán
Diana Sacayán (December 31, 1975 – October 11, 2015) was an Argentinian LGBT activist who fought for the legal rights of transgender people in Argentina.
Biography
Amancay Diana Sacayán was born in Tucumán on December 31, 1975. Her ances ...
,
Marlene Wayar
Marlene Wayar (born 14 October 1968) is an Argentine social psychologist, travesti-transgender activist, and author of the book ''Travesti: una teoría lo suficientemente buena'' (''Cross-dressing ravesti A Good Enough Theory'').
Biography
Marle ...
and
Susy Shock, and
Yren Rotela from Paraguay.
Terminology
Although the use of the term is still common in Spanish,
some contemporary authors reject it to avoid confusion with the practice of
cross-dressing,
as well as the use of the suffix ''
-ism
''-ism'' is a suffix in many English words, originally derived from the Ancient Greek suffix ('), and reaching English through the Latin , and the French . It means "taking side with" or "imitation of", and is often used to describe philosop ...
'', which comes from the
medical sciences
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
and is considered
pathologizing.
In response to this, the use of the terms ( (Portuguese) or ) (Spanish) has become widespread in Brazilian academic literature since the 2000s,
and has been adopted by some Spanish-speaking authors,
while others have opted for the words (roughly "travestity"),
or (roughly "transvestivity").
In the same way, the words and (roughly "transvestiteness" or "transvestment") are used as an alternative to "transvestism", but to designate (i.e.
drag performers). The
Hispanicism ''travestism'' ( en, transvestism) is sometimes seen in articles in English about the topic, especially by South American authors.
The use of the term precedes that of "
transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...
" in the region and its differentiation from the notions of "
transsexual
Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including sex reassignmen ...
" and "
trans woman
A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and s ...
" is complex and can vary depending on the context, ranging from considering it a regional equivalent to a unique identity.
The original use of the word refers to the act of cross-dressing, and became extended in the 1960s to refer to individuals who dressed as women as a performance or in their day-to-day lives.
However, travestis not only choose to dress contrary to their assigned sex, but also adopt female names and pronouns and often undergo cosmetic practices,
hormone replacement therapy
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT), also known as menopausal hormone therapy or postmenopausal hormone therapy, is a form of hormone therapy used to treat symptoms associated with female menopause. These symptoms can include hot flashes, vaginal ...
,
filler injections and
cosmetic surgeries to obtain female body features, although generally without
modifying their genitals nor considering themselves as women.
[Kulick, 1998, p. 5] As such, they may be described as a
transfeminine
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...
gender identity,
and have been considered a regional equivalent to the notion of "
pre-op transsexual".
After a long period of criminalization, "
sexual deviations" became an object of study in the medical and sexual sciences, which established the different forms of
deviation.
[Fernández, 2004. p. 22] In a first period, between 1870 and 1920, a large amount of research was produced about people who
cross-dressed or wished to adopt the role assigned to the opposite sex.
In 1910, the renowned German sexologist
Magnus Hirschfeld
Magnus Hirschfeld (14 May 1868 – 14 May 1935) was a German physician and sexologist.
Hirschfeld was educated in philosophy, philology and medicine. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Com ...
coined the term transvestite ( in Spanish and Portuguese), introduced in his text ''Transvestites: The Erotic Drive To Cross Dress'' (german: Die Transvestiten: ein Untersuchung über den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb).
[Fernández, 2004. p. 29] Hirschfeld used the term to describe "people who feel a compulsion to wear clothes of the opposite sex" and rejected the idea that they were a variant of
homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...
, which at that time was a very widespread conception within sexology.
Between 1920 and 1950, the terms transvestism and
eonism
Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, Progressivism, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on ho ...
were incorporated into the scientific literature, although generally these reports only supplemented those of previous years.
[Fernández, 2004. p. 23] During the 1950s the term
transsexual
Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including sex reassignmen ...
—first used by American sexologist
David Oliver Cauldwell David Oliver Cauldwell (June 17, 1897 – August 30, 1959) was a prolific and pioneering sexologist, who coined the term transsexual as used in its current definition. Many of his monographs on sex, psychology, or health were published by Emanuel H ...
—gained relevance at the same time that sexual identity clinics and
sex change surgery emerged.
[Fernández, 2004. p. 31] In this way, since the late 1960s and during the 1970s, transvestism was put aside as a topic of medical interest.
The term
transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...
was popularized by American activist
Virginia Prince
Virginia Charles Prince (November 23, 1912 – May 2, 2009), born Arnold Lowman, was an American transgender activist. She published '' Transvestia'' magazine, and started the ''Foundation for Personality Expression (FPE)''
and later the Society ...
in the late 1960s to designate those who transgressed gender norms but did not identify with the or transsexual categories, and by the 1980s its widespread use in
core countries
In world systems theory, the core countries are the industrialized capitalist or imperialist countries, which depend on appropriation from peripheral countries and semi-peripheral countries. Core countries control and benefit from the global ma ...
was established.
However, the "trans" and "transgender" categories cannot be easily translated outside core countries, due to the complexity of practices they encompass.
The use of the term precedes theirs in
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
, and their differentiation is complex and can vary depending on the context.
Scholar Cole Rizki pointed out that "trans and identifications are constantly shifting and should not be understood as mutually exclusive. The tensions between trans and as identificatory categories are often untranslatable, leading us to ask what sorts of limitations and possibilities are embedded within the terms' distinctions and critical affinities."
Despite being an
emic
In anthropology, folkloristics, and the social and behavioral sciences, emic () and etic () refer to two kinds of field research done and viewpoints obtained.
The "emic" approach is an insider's perspective, which looks at the beliefs, values, ...
concept widely used throughout the region,
the definition of is a source of controversy,
as it refers to heterogeneous and multiple identities, hence being paradoxical to reduce them to universal explanations.
Groups very similar to travestis exist across Latin America, with names such as , , , , ,
, among others.
[Kulick, 1998, p. 231] Writing for the ''
Latin American Research Review
The ''Latin American Research Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on Latin America and the Caribbean. It was established in 1965 by the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) and is published by LASA's publis ...
'' in 2020, Joseph M. Pierce claimed that in Hispanic American countries, "as a general category, (transgender) or the more popular ''trans''
..refers to people who make identitarian, corporeal, and social efforts to live as members of the gender that differs from the normative sex that they were assigned at birth."
Comparing it to the term , he noted that:
in Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile, [] refers most frequently to people assigned male sex at birth and who feminize their bodies, dress, and behavior; prefer feminine pronouns and forms of address; and often make significant bodily transformations by injecting silicone or taking hormonal treatments but do not necessarily seek sex-reassignment surgery. ..... the specific Latin American conceptual and identity marker involves gender variance
Gender variance or gender nonconformity is behavior or gender expression by an individual that does not match masculine or feminine gender norms. A gender-nonconforming person may be variant in their gender identity, being transgender or non-b ...
but not always gendered difference. While ''transgender'', ''trans'', and ''transsexual'' are terms that refer to changing gender and sex through legal, corporeal, or social mechanisms, a may have been assigned "male" at birth but does not necessarily consider herself a woman (though some do). ..For many travestis the term ''transgender'' depoliticizes a violent history of social and economic marginalization. The term , in contrast, retains this class difference and popular resonance, and is thus a political, rather than a psychological, or even corporeal identification.
According to Brazilian activist Amara Moira, the terms ''trans woman'' and are synonymous, with many people using the former to avoid the negative connotations associated with the latter.
The imposition of the transgender and transvestite categories by Anglo-American academics over identities has been considered by some to be
colonizing and
westernizing in nature, and has been met with resistance by the community.
Originally used colloquially as a
pejorative term
A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
, the category has been
reappropriated
In linguistics, reappropriation, reclamation, or resignification is the cultural process by which a group reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. It is a specific form of a semantic change (i.e. ...
by Brazilian,
Peruvian and especially Argentine activists since the 1990s,
[Raíces Montero, ed., 2010. p. 61] as it has a regional specificity that combines a generalized condition of social vulnerability, an association with
sex work
Sex work is "the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers as well as indirect sexual stimulation". Sex work only refers to volun ...
, the exclusion of basic rights and its recognition as a
non-binary
Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...
and
political identity
Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...
.
As they are excluded from the educational and labor system, stigmatized and reified as objects of theoretical criticism or media consumption, one of the main struggles of activism since its emergence in the 1990s was the creation of their own political subjectivities.
Argentine activist
Lohana Berkins
Lohana Berkins (15 June 1965 – 5 February 2016) was an Argentine travesti activist.
Biography
Berkins was born on 15 June 1965 in Pocitos, Salta. Her father, a soldier, kicked her out at the age of 13.
In 1994, Berkins founded the Asociac ...
pointed out in 2006:
We hold the identity not only by resorting to linguistic regionalism, but also by circumstances and characteristics that make travestism a different phenomenon from North American and European transgenderism. In the first place, we travestis live different circumstances compared to those experienced by many transgenders from other countries, who (...) have the objective of rearranging themselves in the binary logic as women or men. A large part of Latin American travestis claim the option of occupying a position outside of binarism
The gender binary (also known as gender binarism) is the classification of gender into two distinct, opposite forms of masculine and feminine, whether by social system, cultural belief, or both simultaneously. Most cultures use a gender binary, ...
and it is our objective to destabilize the male and female categories. Second, the word transgenderism originated from theoretical works developed within the framework of the North American academy. In contrast, (...) the term in Latin America comes from medicine and has been appropriated, reworked and embodied by travestis to call themselves. This is the term in which we recognize ourselves and that we choose to construct ourselves as subjects of rights. (...) The term "travesti" has been and continues to be used as a synonym for AIDS, thief, scandalous, infected, marginal. We decided to give new meanings to the word and link it with struggle, resistance, dignity and happiness.
Despite its reappropriation by some as a political identity, in some places (especially Spain)
is still regarded as a
transphobic
Transphobia is a collection of ideas and phenomena that encompass a range of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger tow ...
slur, often used to invalidate people who prefer the terms transsexual or transgender.
For example, in 2020 a Spanish journalist caused controversy and had to make a
public apology after using the term to refer to late media personality
La Veneno
Cristina Ortiz Rodríguez (19 March 1964 – 9 November 2016), better known as ('Poisongirl'), was a Spanish singer, actress, sex worker, and media personality. Considered one of the most important and beloved LGBT icons in Spain, she rose to ...
.
History and culture
Argentina
![Carrilches 1945 crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Carrilches_1945_crop.jpg)
An important historical source in the history of the travesti community during the 20th century are the firsthand accounts of Malva Solís,
who emigrated from Chile as a teenager and lived in Argentina until her death in 2015 at the age of 93, being regarded as the longest-lived travesti from the country.
After collecting testimonies from travestis over the age of seventy, Josefina Fernández found in 2004 that most of them regarded the first period of
Juan Perón's government—who ruled
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
between 1946 and 1955—as "the one that most clearly began the persecution of
gay men and travestis, whether or not they practiced street prostitution."
In those years, travestis (identified at that time as ''mariconas'') began to be regularly imprisoned at the
Devoto prison, as "
sex offender
A sex offender (sexual offender, sex abuser, or sexual abuser) is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crim ...
s."
The prison was a recurring meeting point for travestis and continued to be so until the 21st-century.
Despite its repressive aspects, the prison space gave them the possibility of generating solidarity strategies and forging links that would later spread outside.
They even developed their own
argot
A cant is the jargon or language of a group, often employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group.McArthur, T. (ed.) ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (1992) Oxford University Press It may also be called a cryptolect, argo ...
known as ''carrilche'', which was nourished by prison
jargon
Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a partic ...
.
As anthropologist María Soledad Cutuli explains: "Today this code is known as the ''teje''. It consists of taking up elements of prison jargon or "
olicelunfardo
Lunfardo (; from the Italian ''lombardo'' or inhabitant of Lombardy in the local dialect) is an argot originated and developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the lower classes in Buenos Aires and from there spread to other urban are ...
", deforming some syllables of certain words, and also using invented terms such as ''cirilqui'' to refer to the police, or even the
polysemic ''teje'' (Spanish for "
weaving
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal ...
"), which can mean, depending on the context, 'lie, story, argument, affair.' To say that someone is a ''tejedora'' implies a subtle way of qualifying her as a liar; to ask 'what are they ''tejiendo''?' refers to assuming that a meeting or conversation may have ulterior motives".
The
Carnival was historically regarded as the popular festivity of travestis, as it was the only time of the year in which they could express themselves freely in the public space without suffering police persecution.
As a travesti from Buenos Aires recalled in 2019: "They were 6 days of freedom and 350 in prison. I'm not exaggerating. So it was for us. This is how it was before and after
the dictatorship, even worse after the dictatorship. Those days it was something magical: because from being discriminated against we would turn into diva-like. If there were no travestis in a carnival parade, it seemed like something was missing."
The
Buenos Aires Carnival The Buenos Aires Carnival ( or ''Corso de Buenos Aires'') is an annual event that takes place during the Carnival festivities, usually at the end of February, on the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The two-day event features murga parades, colo ...
's ''
murga
Murga is a form of popular musical theatre performed in Montevideo, Uruguay, Panama, Argentina and Badajoz, Spain during the Carnival season. Murga groups also operate in the Buenos Aires Carnival, though to a lesser extent than in Montevideo; ...
s'' first incorporated "messy"
cross-dressing acts in the 1940s and 1950s to entertain audiences, a modality that later gave way to the ''transformista'' figure (i.e.
drag queens
A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and part o ...
)—defined as "the luxuriously dressed ''maricón''"—becoming an attraction for the public.
According to Malva Solís, two travestis from
La Boca
La Boca (; "the Mouth", probably of the Matanza River) is a neighborhood (''barrio'') of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. It retains a strong Italian flavour, many of its early settlers having originated in the city of Genoa.
Geography
L ...
's carnival parade named Cualo and Pepa "La Carbonera" pioneered of the figure of the "''murga''s
vedette", an innovation that began around 1961.
This little-documented phenomenon known as the "travesti carnival movement" marked a milestone in the parades of the 1960s and 1970s, and had the participation of make-up artists, costume designers and choreographers from Buenos Aires'
revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own dur ...
theatrical scene, all of them ''maricones''.
A 1968 ''
Primera Plana
''Primera Plana'' was a weekly glossy political, cultural and current affairs magazine published in Buenos Aires, Argentina, between 1962 and 1973. The magazine was very influential in shaping the journalism tradition in the country.
History and ...
'' article on the Carnival of Buenos Aires reported: "Those who resist disappearing are travestis, who began by exaggerating their feminine charms and have ended up in a dangerous refinement. Wigs and modern cosmetics turned them into suggestive stars, whose sexual identity was no longer so simple to grasp."
In 2011, Solís reflected on the importance of Carnival celebrations for travestis: "I think to myself, that the leitmotif of the travestis who integrated the ''murgas'' was to bring out from the bottom of their soul their repressed self of the rest of the year. Everyone saw them and applauded them, but could not understand that behind that bright facade there was a desire, the desire to be recognized and accepted in order to live in freedom."
![Vanessa Show 1975](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Vanessa_Show_1975.jpg)
Contrary to the 1950s, the 1970s are considered an era of "artistic travesti 'uncover'" (Spanish: "''destape''"), which began with the arrival of a Brazilian travesti who performed in a well-known theater in Buenos Aires.
[Fernández, 2004, p. 35] Her show paved the way door to later performances by local travestis.
According to Solís, the use of the term ''travesti'' began to be used in the 1960s, initially as a way to refer to the cross-dressing and transsexual performers who came from abroad to do shows.
In 1963, French entertainer
Coccinelle
Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy (23 August 1931 – 9 October 2006), better known by her stage name Coccinelle, was a French actress, entertainer and singer. She was transgender, and was the first widely publicized post-war gender reassignment ca ...
visited Buenos Aires to perform at the
Teatro Maipo
Teatro Maipo is a historic theatre in downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , ...
and made a big impact among local ''mariconas''.
Solís told researcher María Soledad Cutuli in 2013: "Beginning with Coccinelle (...) there is a whole opening, something new that is coming. A lot of 'siliconized'
erformerscame, plastic surgeries; social openness, (...) new opportunities for ''mariconas'', 'the travesti artist' is inaugurated. (...) From then on a new way of life opened. (...) The culture of the ''puto'' artist, all of them were already walking around with cotton stuffing to make their breasts, and they were already going out to sing, to dance..."
The stage became the only place where travestis could publicly dress as women, as it was forbidden to do so on the streets.
Around 1964, travesti artists—at that time named ''lenci'', in reference to a type of cloth, because they "were like little rag dolls"—met at an apartment on
Avenida Callao, where they rehearsed musical acts and prepared to go out to nightclubs or theaters shows.
Since the use of silicone had not yet become widespread, they resorted to the use of female hormones to "be able to show their breasts on stage as aesthetically as possible".
According to writer Daniela Vizgarra: "If you didn't have an
Anovlar 21 in your makeup bag, apparently you were nonexistent."
Travestis emulated a contoured figure—which emphasized breasts and buttocks—through
paddings called ''truquis'',
''piu-piú'' or ''colchón'' (), first using cotton fabrics and later
foam rubber
Foam rubber (also known as cellular rubber, sponge rubber, or expanded rubber) refers to rubber that has been manufactured with a foaming agent to create an air-filled matrix structure. Commercial foam rubbers are generally made of synthetic rub ...
.
While padding had been in use since at least the 1950s, the arrival of
lycra in the 1960s allowed them to "build more realistic physical contours."
The
feminine beauty ideal
The feminine beauty ideal is a specific set of beauty standards regarding traits that are ingrained in women throughout their lives and from a young age to increase their ''perceived'' physical attractiveness. It is a phenomenon experienced by man ...
put forward by American television also included small and pointed noses but, as surgeries were too expensive, most travestis settled for temporary arrangements, resorting to the use of glue and objects that could emulate a prosthesis.
María Belén Correa argues that the emergence of travesti stage performers such
Vanessa Show, Evelyn, Brigitte Gambini and Ana Lupe Chaparro in the 1960s and 1970s constituted "another way of activism".
According to Evelyn—one of the first people to popularize ''transformismo'' in the theater scene—the "first travestis to appear in Buenos Aires" were a group called Les Girls in 1972, followed by
Vanessa Show and Ana Lupez.
She also mentioned the travestis of the "following era", which included Graciela Scott, Claudia Prado and herself, who debuted in 1977.
![Cris Miró por Gianni Mestichelli](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Cris_Mir%C3%B3_por_Gianni_Mestichelli.jpg)
The arrival of industrial silicone in Buenos Aires radically transformed travesti bodies and subjectivities.
It was brought from France to Brazil, and from there to neighboring countries.
[Kulick, 1998, p. 73] In the 1980s, famous actress and vedette
Moria Casán
Ana María Casanova (born August 16, 1946), known by her stage name Moria Casán, is an Argentine actress and TV personality.
Casán made her theatre debut in 1970, and quickly became one of the country's leading vedettes during Argentina's Gol ...
became a role model for local travestis, not only for her voluptuous body, but also for her public image of sexual ease.
This contoured body type ideal began to shift in the 1990s, when "more stylized and androgynous female forms" were popularized.
With the appearance of silicone, a new "hierarchy between the bodies" of travestis arose, differentiating between those that had or did not have silicone, but also regarding the amount used and the quality of the final results.
As researcher Ana Grabiela Álvarez explains: "The arrival of industrial silicone brings them closer to a generic female construction and fixes both bodily transformations and a particular prostitution niche".
In the 1980s, the
Pan-American Highway
The Pan-American Highway (french: (Auto)route panaméricaine/transaméricaine; pt, Rodovia/Auto-estrada Pan-americana; es, Autopista/Carretera/Ruta Panamericana) is a network of roads stretching across the Americas and measuring about in to ...
—which connects the City of Buenos Aires with the
Buenos Aires Province's different districts—established itself as the most important area in which travestis worked as prostitutes,
and thus became one of the definitive aspects of the travesti identity for Argentine society and media culture.
In 1986,
Canal 9 journalist José de Zer reported and at the same time denounced, with testimonial resources, the murder of travestis working on the Pan-American Highway.
Due to the television report, both the journalist and the channel were sued and faced trial, so travestis had to organize themselves during the following years so as to make their ignored identity appear in the mass media.
Travestis broke into Argentine public opinion in the 1990s,
[Fernández, 2004. p. 38] and their first appearances on television coincided with the organized appearance of the travestis on the public scene and in the streets of Buenos Aires.
In 1991, Keny de Michelli became the first travesti to appear on
free-to-air
Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscripti ...
television, appearing in various programs in order to visibilize the community.
These appearances were quickly trivialized and presented as a peculiar hyper-feminine expression of masculinity.
After gaining popularity as a vedette in 1995,
Cris Miró caused a
media sensation
Media circus is a colloquial metaphor, or idiom, describing a news event for which the level of media coverage—measured by such factors as the number of reporters at the scene and the amount of material broadcast or published—is perceived t ...
for her gender identity and expression.
As the first travesti to become a national celebrity,
she is regarded as a symbol of the social milieu of the 1990s and paved the way for other Argentine travestis and trans women to gain popularity as vedettes, most notably
Flor de la V.
Parallel to Miró's rise to notoriety, the political organization of Argentine travestis was emerging, with activists making their first appearances in local media.
The vedette's celebrity was initially criticized by a portion of these activists, who resented the unequal treatment they received and her attempt to embody an idealized vision of the perfect woman.
![Susy Shock crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Susy_Shock_crop.jpg)
During the early-to-mid 2000s, the musical and literary career of
Susy Shock, a renowned travesti activist, was built and gained visibility through LGBT cultural spaces such as Casa Mutual Giribone in Buenos Aires and the Asentamiento 8 de Mayo in José León Suárez, Buenos Aires Province.
In November 2007, the first issue of ''El Teje'', the first periodical written by travestis in Latin America, was published in a joint initiative between activists and the Ricardo Rojas Cultural Center.
In travesti jargon, ''teje'' is a polysemic word that comes from prostitution life, as explained by ''El Teje''s director Marlene Wayar: "It is the complicit word between us, which we don't want the other to find out about: bring me the ''teje'', because of the cocaine; or look at the ''teje'', it is when
he clienthas a wallet with money. And that is the name of the magazine.
In the late 2010s, the travesti community of Buenos Aires and its surroundings has gained recognition for its creative and artistic contributions, inserting itself in the "queer
countercultural
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
scene", a circuit of theaters, bars and cultural centers such as Casa Brandon, Tierra Violeta, MU Trinchera Boutique and, more recently, Feliza and Maricafé.
As researcher Patricia Fogelman pointed out in 2020: "In this set of spaces, travestis are seen more and more frequently performing theater, stand-up monologues, reciting poetry, doing performances, accompanying musical bands, etc. On the other hand, within the same extended community there is a clear interest in incorporating
ravestisand highlighting them as central characters in novels, plays and songs. Thus, we could say that around the figure of traveestis there is a recognition and a forceful attempt to put them in places of visibility, especially, by lesbian authors of novels and music for alternative young people."
''
Las malas'', the debut novel by travesti writer and actress
Camila Sosa Villada—first published in 2019 in Argentina and the following year in Spain—has been a widespread critical and commercial success.
It focuses on the lives of a group of travestis from
Córdoba, Argentina and their work as prostitutes at
Sarmiento Park
Sarmiento Park is the largest public park in Córdoba, Argentina.
Overview
The development of a suburb south of the rapidly growing Córdoba of the late nineteenth century created the need for an extensive new green space for the area. The new ...
. However, Sosa Villada has denied that the book was conceived as an act of activism or visibility, claiming that focusing discussions about travestis around marginality and sex work silences their current cultural contributions to society.
The ongoing editorial success of ''Las malas'' has sparked local interest in local
transgender literature
Transgender literature is a collective term used to designate the literary production that addresses, has been written by or portrays people of diverse gender identity.
History
Representations in literature of transgender people have existed fo ...
, and has been framed within a so-called "new
Latin American boom
The Latin American Boom ( es, Boom latinoamericano) was a literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s when the work of a group of relatively young Latin American novelists became widely circulated in Europe and throughout the world. The Boom is mo ...
", with several non-male authors from the region capturing the attention of the international market.
With the onset of the
COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina
The COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). On 3 March 2020, the virus was confirmed to have spread to Argentina. As of , a ...
in March 2020, travestis were one of the groups most affected by the
lockdown
A lockdown is a restriction policy for people, community or a country to stay where they are, usually due to specific risks (such as COVID-19) that could possibly harm the people if they move and interact freely.
The term is used for a prison ...
, since most of them resort to prostitution and live from day to day, leaving them without income and, in many cases, under threat of eviction from the hotels where they were already paying elevated prices.
The situation was so delicate that different NGOs came out to face the emergency, such as 100% Diversidad y Derechos and La Rosa Naranja.
In 2021,
Flor de la V—one of the most visible transgender people in the country— announced that she no longer identified as a trans woman but as a travesti, writing: "I discovered a more correct way to get in touch with how I feel: neither woman, nor heterosexual, nor homosexual, nor bisexual. I am a dissident of the gender system, my political construction in this society is that of a pure-bred travesti. That what I am and what I want and choose to be."
Brazil
Anthropologist
Don Kulick
Don Kulick (born 5 September 1960) is professor of anthropology at Uppsala University in Sweden. Kulick works within the frameworks of both cultural and linguistic anthropology, and has carried out field work in Papua New Guinea, Brazil, Italy and ...
noted that: "Travestis appear to exist throughout Latin America, but in no other country are they as numerous and well known as in Brazil, where they occupy a strikingly visible place in both social space and the cultural
imaginary)."
[Kulick, 1998, p. 6] For this reason, they are frequently invoked by social commentators as symbols of Brazil itself.
[Kulick, 1998, p. 7]
One of the most prominent travestis in the Brazilian cultural imaginary of the late 20th century was
Roberta Close, who became a household name in the mid-1980s and was "widely acclaimed to be the most beautiful woman in Brazil," posing in ''
Playboy
''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...
'' and regularly appearing in television and several other publications.
Photographer Madalena Schwartz made a series of portraits of the travesti scene of São Paulo in the 1970s.
In recent years, hiring trans women has become popular in the
advertising industry The advertising industry is the global industry of public relation and marketing companies, media services and advertising agencies - largely controlled today by just a few international holding companies ( WPP plc, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe, Inte ...
, although at the same time differentiating them from transvestites.
Paraguay
In the 1980s, during
Alfredo Stroessner
Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda (; 3 November 1912 – 16 August 2006) was a Paraguayan army officer and politician who served as President of Paraguay from 15 August 1954 to 3 February 1989.
Stroessner led a coup d'état on 4 May 1954 with t ...
's military dictatorship, twenty travestis were arrested as part of the Palmieri Case (Spanish: ''Caso Palmieri''), among them the well-known Carla and Liz Paola.
A 14-year-old teenager, Mario Luis Palmieri, had been found murdered and the hypothesis handled by the police was that of a homosexual
crime of passion
A crime of passion (French: ''crime passionnel''), in popular usage, refers to a violent crime, especially homicide, in which the perpetrator commits the act against someone because of sudden strong impulse such as anger rather than as a premed ...
, unleashing one of the most famous persecutions of LGBT identities in the history of Paraguay.
Paraguayan travestis use a secret language called ''jeito''—originated in the field of prostitution—which they use to protect themselves from clients, the police or any person strange to the places where they work and that threatens the security of the group.
[Falabella, Augsten, Recalde & Orué Pozzo, 2017. p. 69] Some of its words are ''rua'' (street),
[Falabella, Augsten, Recalde & Orué Pozzo, 2017. p. 64] ''odara'' (the travesti head of a prostitution area),
[Falabella, Augsten, Recalde & Orué Pozzo, 2017. p. 70] ''alibán'' (police) and ''fregués'' (clients).
[Falabella, Augsten, Recalde & Orué Pozzo, 2017. p. 71]
Spain
The arrival of the medical model of transsexuality was earlier in Europe than in Latin America, and therefore its impact was different in each region.
In Spain, travesti identities are generally included under the category "transsexual" in academic research, since it is perceived as more "
politically correct
''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
".
As a result of the powerful medical institutionalization around transsexuality, calling oneself "travesti" in Spain is considered a discrediting act, due to its close link with prostitution, especially after the migrations of Latin American travestis.
Nevertheless, in the 1970s the term "travesti" was widely used to refer to any people who were assigned male at birth but dressed and lived as women, either temporarily or permanently.
In fact, the few Spanish self-described "transsexuals" who had sex reassignment surgery were not widely accepted by their peers and were seen as "
castrated
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which an individual loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles), while chemical castration uses pharmac ...
people".
During the
Franco era, travestis were persecuted through the creation of a strong legislative and police apparatus.
Between the late 1980s and early 1990s, transsexuals—who no longer called themselves "travestis"—began to organize themselves by creating their own political collectives, demanding the institutionalization of transsexuality in the health system, as well as the end of stereotypes that linked them to HIV/AIDS, prostitution and marginalization—an image embodied in the concept of travesti.
Therefore, the travesti specificity in Spain is usually subsumed under the most consensual medical category of "transsexual" or in more politicized terms such as "trans" or "transgender", as this gives greater social legitimacy.
Since the vast majority of travestis come from poor social environments with very low education, their differences with transsexual activists are also given by the demands of these more intellectualized groups.
Nevertheless, some modern-day people living in Spain choose to label themselves as travestis as a
genderfluid
Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...
gender identity.
Academic research
Overview
Travestis have been studied by disciplines like
social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the ...
,
but especially
social anthropology, which has extensively documented the phenomenon in both classical and more recent
ethnographies.
[Fernández, 2004. p. 39] Scholarship produced on South American travestis has largely been produced by non-trans academics from both the
Global North and Global South
The concept of Global North and Global South (or North–South divide in a global context) is used to describe a grouping of countries along socio-economic and political characteristics. The Global South is a term often used to identify region ...
, something that has been vocally critiqued by activists.
Being the country with the largest population of travestis (where they are even invoked as
cultural icon
A cultural icon is a person or an artifact that is identified by members of a culture as representative of that culture. The process of identification is subjective, and "icons" are judged by the extent to which they can be seen as an authentic ...
s),
[Kulick, 1998, p. 6][Kulick, 1998, p. 7] Brazil is the country with the longest experience in the study of these identities,
and the works written in and about Brazil outnumber those of any other Latin American country.
While academic interest in Brazilian travesti prostitutes began to spread in the 1990s and early 2000s—through international researches like
Don Kulick
Don Kulick (born 5 September 1960) is professor of anthropology at Uppsala University in Sweden. Kulick works within the frameworks of both cultural and linguistic anthropology, and has carried out field work in Papua New Guinea, Brazil, Italy and ...
, Peter Fry and
Richard Parker, as well as local authors such as Marcos Renato Benedetti and Helio Silva—travesti identities became a central theme in the country's
gender studies
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field ...
during the mid-to-late-2000s, attributed to the growing influence of
queer theory,
post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...
and
LGBT activism
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...
in academic literature.
Anthropological research about the travesti population in the Spanish language is much scarcer than in English and Portuguese, especially among Latin American authors.
Some scholars relate this to the late arrival of the medical model of transsexuality, which has also led to the use of "inappropriate" terms to designate identities that do not adhere to gender norms.
Relevant Spanish-language studies about travestis come from researchers from Spain, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Ecuador.
Main hypotheses
According to Argentine researcher María Soledad Cutuli, the most recent travesti ethnographies fall under five main axes of analysis: "gender identity", "corporeality and subjectivity", "health and sexuality", "prostitution and sociability" and, to a lesser extent, "political organization".
Faced with the phenomenon, researchers have generally proposed one of three hypotheses: that travestis constitute a
third gender
Third gender is a concept in which individuals are categorized, either by themselves or by society, as neither man nor woman. It is also a social category present in societies that recognize three or more genders. The term ''third'' is usuall ...
, that travestis reinforce one of the only two genders available in their society (masculine or feminine), or the perspective of authors who argue that travestis challenge the notion of
binarism
The gender binary (also known as gender binarism) is the classification of gender into two distinct, opposite forms of masculine and feminine, whether by social system, cultural belief, or both simultaneously. Most cultures use a gender binary, ...
, but "far from being their proposal that of supernumerary or multiple genders, what they do seek is the
deconstruction of the category of gender itself."
[Fernández, 2004. p. 58] Since the 1990 publication of ''
Gender Trouble
''Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity'' (1990; second edition 1999) is a book by the philosopher Judith Butler in which the author argues that gender is a kind of improvised performance.
Summary
Butler criticizes one of t ...
'', several ideas put forward by American philosopher
Judith Butler—like the claim that the concept of a
biological sex is itself a gendered notion—have been of great impact for the academic analysis of travestis and
gender studies
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field ...
in general.
[Kulick, 1998, p. 230][Fernández, 2004, p. 59]
As a ''third gender''
A very wide range of anthropological studies has investigated travestis based on a hypothesis that states that they should be interpreted as an expression of a third gender or sex,
[Fernández, 2004. p. 41] in the same manner of the
berdache
Two-spirit (also two spirit, 2S or, occasionally, twospirited) is a modern, , umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-varian ...
s of North America,
[Fernández, 2004. p. 43] the
hijras of India, the
muxe
In Zapotec cultures of Oaxaca (southern Mexico), a muxe (also spelled muxhe; ) is a person assigned male at birth who dresses and behaves in ways otherwise associated with women; they may be seen as a third gender.
Etymology
The Zapotec word ' ...
s of Mexico,
the
kathoey
''Kathoey'' or ''katoey'' ( th, กะเทย; ) is an identity used by some people in Thailand, whose identities in English may be best described as transgender women in some cases, or effeminate gay men in other cases. Transgender wo ...
of Thailand, the
māhū
' ('in the middle') in Native Hawaiian and Tahitian cultures are third gender people with traditional spiritual and social roles within the culture, similar to Tongan ' and Samoan '. Historically māhū were assigned male at birth (AMAB), but in ...
of Tahiti, the
fa'afafine of Samoa and the
xanith of Oman, among other identities.
One of the first anthropologists to propose the category of third gender were Kay Martin and Barbara Voorhies in 1978, who based their research on the review of classical ethnographies about berdaches.
[Fernández, 2004. p. 40] The idea of a third gender was later put forward in the mid-1990s by authors such as
Gilbert Herdt
Gilbert H. Herdt (born February 24, 1949) is Emeritus Professor of Human Sexuality Studies and Anthropology and a Founder of the Department of Sexuality Studies and National Sexuality Resource Center at San Francisco State University. He founded ...
,
Will Roscoe Will Roscoe (February 8, 1955) is an American activist, scholar, and author based in San Francisco, California.
Early life
Will Roscoe was born on February 8, 1955. He grew up in Missoula, Montana.
Gay activism
Roscoe helped found the Lambda Alli ...
, Hilda Habychain and Anne Bolin; and extended to other non-Western peoples.
[Fernández, 2004. p. 40] In 1998, Kulick argued that: "Travestis may well be considered to be a 'third,' in some of the senses in which
Marjorie Garber
Marjorie Garber (born June 11, 1944) is an American professor at Harvard University
and the author of a wide variety of books, most notably ones about William Shakespeare and aspects of popular culture including sexuality.
Biography
She wrote '' ...
uses that term, but they are not a third that is situated outside or beyond a gendered binary."
[Kulick, 1998, p. 230] Writing for ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' in 2019, Victor Madrigal-Borloz listed the travesti people from Brazil and Argentina as one of the many worldwide identities that are neither male or female, alongside the ''yimpininni'' of the
Tiwi people
The Tiwi people (or Tunuvivi) are one of the many Aboriginal groups of Australia. Nearly 2,000 Tiwi people live on Bathurst and Melville Islands, which make up the Tiwi Islands, lying about from Darwin. The Tiwi language is a language isola ...
in Australia, as well as fa'afafine in Samoa, two spirit in Canada and the United States and hijra in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
As a reinforcement of gender binarism
With her 1989 book ''Travestism and the Politics of Gender'', Annie Woodhouse established herself among the researchers within a perspective that considers travestism as a reinforcement of gender identities, in this case the female identity.
[Fernández, 2004, p. 52] Woodhouse argued that travestis see gender as something that is rigidly demarcated between masculinity and femininity and, in this sense, reproduce traditional gender roles that
objectify women.
[Fernández, 2004, p. 52] In her 1993 and 1995 researches on travestism, Argentine anthropologist Victoria Barreda criticized the third gender category, arguing that travestis construct an identity that necessarily takes
gender stereotypes
A gender role, also known as a sex role, is a social role encompassing a range of behaviors and attitudes that are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on that person's sex. Gender roles are usually cent ...
as a reference point.
[Fernández, 2004, p. 50] Another researcher who follows this trend is Richard Ekins, who described trasvestites as "feminized men".
[Fernández, 2004, p. 54] Among the research based on
participant observation, French anthropologist Annick Prieur has been considered a pioneer for her 1998 ethnography on the travesti community from the suburbs of
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...
, in which she argued that they reproduce their society's gender binarism.
Brazilian researchers Neuza Maria de Oliveira and Hélio Silva—considered the founders of the ethnography about the daily life of Brazilian travestis—also aligned themselves in this view, as did the latter's follower Marcelo José Oliveira.
Despite these authors' intention of increasing academic visibility to travestis, they have been widely criticized by their successors for using male pronouns when referring to them.
Critically developing upon these early works through the use of
ethnomethodology
Ethnomethodology is the study of how social order is produced in and through processes of social interaction.Garfinkel, H. (1974) 'The origins of the term ethnomethodology', in R.Turner (Ed.) Ethnomethodology, Penguin, Harmondsworth, pp 15–18. I ...
, Kulick studied the travesti population of
Salvador, Bahia and placed their social stigmatization within the larger context of class and racial inequalities.
[Kulick, 1998, p. 8] Kulick's conclusions are far removed from later
postmodern positions, as he argued that the travesti identity is configured from
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
social structures
In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally rel ...
.
The author proposed an alternative position, suggesting that travestis base their identity not on anatomical sex differences, but rather on
sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generall ...
, identifying themselves as a subtype of
gay men.
[Kulick, 1998, p. 227] He used the term "not-men" to refer to travestis, claiming he chose it: "partly for want of a culturally elaborated label and partly to foreground my conviction that the gender system that makes it possible for travestis to emerge and make sense is one that is massively oriented towards, if not determined by, male subjectivity, male desire, and male pleasure, as those are culturally elaborated in Brazil."
[Kulick, 1998, p. 229] He further explained:
It is important to understand that the claim I am making here is that travestis share a gender with women, not that they ''are'' women (or that women are travesti—even if that latter proposition might be a fruitful one to explore further). The distinction is crucial. Individual travestis will not always or necessarily share individual women's roles, goals, or social status. (...) However, inasmuch as travestis share the same gender with women, they are understood to share (and they feel themselves to share) with women a whole spectrum of tastes, perceptions, behaviors, styles, feelings, and desires.[Kulick, 1998, p. 233]
Kulick's research had a much broader international impact than that of his predecessors, due to its insertion in North American academia and for being published in English.
The aforementioned authors have in common the idea that travesti identity does not subvert
gender role
A gender role, also known as a sex role, is a social role encompassing a range of behaviors and attitudes that are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on that person's sex. Gender roles are usually cent ...
s nor
heteronormativity.
As a dislocation of gender itself
Informed by Judith Butler's ideas and
queer theory, recent scholarship analyzes travestis as a demonstration of the
performative character of gender, claiming that their identities are in a permanent process of construction that enters into dispute with gender binarism.
As noted by Spanish anthropologist María Fernanda Guerrero Zavala in 2015: "At the academic level, the approaches to identities and bodies from the ''queer'' point of view, which are gaining strength, are proposed as a way out of the static conception of identities and propose angles of theoretical interpretation based on life experiences."
Fernández addresses the travesti issue using critical
gender theory
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field ...
.
In a 2012 research on Brazilian travesti immigrants in
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
, Spanish anthropologist Julieta Vartabedian Cabral suggested that travestis ''make'' their gender, highlighting the feminization of their bodies and sexual relationships as evidence.
Fellow researcher María Fernanda Guerrero Zavala noted that: "Faced with other theorizations that call for the disembodiment of identities and queer and transgender activism, Vartabedian structures a "body" based on the most carnal experiences of transvestites".
Marluce Pereira da Silva, Josefina Fernández, Juliana Frota da Justa Coelho and Andrés García Becerra
The "travesti theory"
A fundamental part of the existing bibliography was produced by travestis themselves, as is the case of activist
Lohana Berkins
Lohana Berkins (15 June 1965 – 5 February 2016) was an Argentine travesti activist.
Biography
Berkins was born on 15 June 1965 in Pocitos, Salta. Her father, a soldier, kicked her out at the age of 13.
In 1994, Berkins founded the Asociac ...
, whose articles, conferences, interviews and compilations are the pillar for the study of this community in Argentina.
In recent years, there have been discussions regarding the so-called "travesti theory",
a
critical theory that proposes the construction of their own
paradigm,
epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Epis ...
and
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
, through which the established discourses can be disarticulated in order to produce new
knowledge production modes on the travesti population, from a regional and
decolonizing perspective.
Peruvian scholar Malú Machuca Rose described travesti as "the refusal to be trans, the refusal to be woman, the refusal to be intelligible. (...) Travesti is classed and raced: it means you do not present femininely all of the time because you cannot afford to."
According to Rizki, the "travesti theory" constitutes a "
Latin/x American body of work and a body politics with an extensive transregional history", citing South American writers such as Berkins, Giuseppe Campuzano, Claudia Rodríguez and
Marlene Wayar
Marlene Wayar (born 14 October 1968) is an Argentine social psychologist, travesti-transgender activist, and author of the book ''Travesti: una teoría lo suficientemente buena'' (''Cross-dressing ravesti A Good Enough Theory'').
Biography
Marle ...
as exponents.
He defined travesti as "a politics of refusal", as it "disavows coherence and is an always already racialized and classed geopolitical identification that gestures toward the inseparability of indigeneity, blackness, material precarity, sex work, HIV status, and uneven relationships to diverse state formations."
According to scholar Dora Silva Santana, travesti is "a negation of an imposed dominant expectation of womanhood that centers on people who are
cisgender
Cisgender (often shortened to cis; sometimes cissexual) is a term used to describe a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth. The word ''cisgender'' is the antonym of '' transgender''. The prefix '' cis-'' is L ...
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heteronormative
Heteronormativity is the concept that heterosexuality is the preferred or normal mode of sexual orientation. It assumes the gender binary (i.e., that there are only two distinct, opposite genders) and that sexual and marital relations are most ...
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