A queer community encompasses a group of peoples whose gender or sexual expression does not align with dominant expectations. While some scholars have reclaimed the term “queer” as a form of self-identity, there are others who perceive this reclamation as a celebration of defying considered as “abnormal.” Over history, There have been various manifestations of outward oppression and discrimination towards gay and lesbian communities (Rodriguez 2003). These manifestations have included, but not limited to, racism, cissexism, ableism, sizeism, assimilation politics, and Trans misogyny. The result has been the marginalization of many individuals who identify with the two groups. In this regard, “queer” is an anti-assimilation and radical expression that incorporates the diverse aspects of identities, Queer Latinx consider themselves as a representation of the beautiful diversity of Latin society.
The history of queer Latinx date back to the 1960’s when an awakening of sexual consciousness and struggles for racial, sexual, and gender equalities allowed thousands of Latinx to overcome discrimination. For the queer Latinx, narcissistic satisfaction was their way of exercising their rights to pleasure (Reynolds and Robinson 2016). The emergence of AIDS in the 1980’s temporarily disrupted the celebration of the new sexual consciousness. Due to the misconception that AIDS could only affect the white gay men, many queer Latinx lost their lives and “were thrown in the streets” (27). In response to the pandemic, a new set of cultural, sexual, and political strategies sprung up to curb the spread of the disease, and this meant that queer Latinx had to compromise their pleasure for the sake of life. The new contradictions between queer life and death culminated into a queer Latinx triangle: people striving to celebrate their sexuality, vigilance to remain alive, and mourning those who succumbed to AIDS. Mourning the leading queer Latinx figures like Teresita reflected the community dialectic between life and death for queer Latinx.
It is hard to tell the history of queer Latinx without mentioning Teresita la Campesina, who has over the years become a symbol of transgender identity. As a staunch Catholic, her identification with the queer community was a major contradiction, perhaps even a paradox, to the queer Latinx community. Here was a person with so deep a conviction in her sexual identity that she never carried a government-sanctioned passport, which she felt, would accord her a national identity. Rather, she was active in producing her multiple identities in her desire to be "remembered as a queer citizen of history" (Burton, 2006, pp. 128).
As a Latinx transgender artist whose life had been plagued by AIDs, Teresita made a living by doing musical rounds in restaurants, house parties, and bars. By the late 1950's, she had established herself as a living legend, not simply by her musical career, but by the way she carried herself and her deep conviction of the ideals she represented in history. She became the voice of the deep commitment by the larger queer community to lay out a historical record of their queer desires. She had dedicated her life to sharing the history and stories of the fallen, the people who lived before the emergence of the current generation of queer Latinx. Her story is especially important in understanding the daily life of the illiterate, poor, and unemployed Latinx. Bridging people, places, and periods, the tales and times of Teresita, both the famous and infamous, assist in understanding the varying contours of queer Latinx life. It is a script that creates a living evidential archive that addresses both the whiteness of queer archiving practices and the heteronormativity of Latino historiography" (Burton, 2006, pp. 113).
Virtually secluded from the rest of the society in the sense of their identity, queer Latinx found solace from each other through house gatherings and organizing monthly nighttime parties. Tired of sexual repressions and ambivalence, they had learnt to mourn their fellow queers. On their end, bisexual individuals were more embattled due to the automatic assumption that they formed the bridge for AIDs transmission between queers and straights. On the other hand, the transgender community that had developed public culture suffered more from AIDs due to disregard by Latinx health agencies. Those who took care of the dying queer, and who would later die, were determined to leave a historical fmgerprint, as seen through the gay and lesbian escapades into straight Latinx bar places and the racial stunts into the white gay activism. The period between the 1970s and the 1980s saw the forging of social and political visions that enabled the queer Latinx to survive the diverse challenges of AIDs.
While Teresita was courageous enough to confront the challenges and still live to sixty, others like Gwen Araujo, a transgender, were not as lucky. After disappearing while attending a party in San Francisco, she would later be reported as among the thirty transgenders who were murdered in unclear circumstances (Burton, 2006). The case highlights the uneven distribution of the notions of "democracy," "equal citizenship," and "progress" for queer Latinx. Teresita was well-aware of this disproportion and actively complained about it. Gwen was also aware of it, but she died early before she could share the knowledge.
Over the last three decades, the quest by queer Latinx to overcome homophobia and transphobia has been a life-long struggle, and one serves as a record of their fight for self-identity. Though she succumbed to AIDs at the age of sixty-one, Teresita's death was the culmination of these battles. From fighting against blood family to encountering bashers along the streets, confrontations with the police state, and outward rejection by health agencies (Burton, 2006 pp. 131). The lives of Gwen and Teresita, though short and long, respectively, are archival traces of the historical journey of the queer Latinx. Largely, an analysis of the two similar, yet different lives, is enough to form an understanding of the political and historical labor that continues to theorize sexuality, race, gender, and evidence with the voices and bodies of queer Latinx. The multigenerational history of queer Latinx has assumed multilingual, multiracial co-gender and same-sex contexts.
The varying roles that the different queer Latinx individuals, such as Teresita, Gwen, and most recently, Sylvia Rivera and Jose Sarria, played in history evoke several questions. Firstly, there are queries on the extent to which their queer Latinx identity and expression become assumed by the dominant conceptions of sexuality and gender. Even as these figures retain their foundational status of the queer Latinx community, it would be important to understand how each one of them became marginalized in varying, yet important ways. Furthermore, it is necessary to learn the impact of their activism on the recent history of queer Latinx, in particular, and the transgender community, in general. Nevertheless, the actual queer lives of the actors highlighted above need to be contextualized in historical contexts, not least since the actors were reviled in the twentieth century (Ramirez, 2005). One thing that becomes clear from the analysis of queer Latinx history is that sexuality, ethnicity, and gender have remained complexly constructed and intertwined over time.
Despite the lack of enough freedom, support, and space to outwardly express their self-consciousness to the highest extent possible, the quest to project the experiences of queer Latinx onto the national and international platforms has not lost its momentum. In its archetypal form, the history of queer Latinx demonstrate a daunting struggle to establish a cultural space in which identity is not only well-defined but also validated. It is, as has always been, a desire to live an authentic and free life. Queer Latinx pioneers such as Teresita laid the framework for purging the self-hatred, repression, and shame, and instead, demand for unconditional acknowledgement of their queerness. Coming out is a form of signaling the belonging to a unique minority group, with a distinct sexual orientation. It is a group that bears a particular sense of community and subculture. This desire to come out poses the risk of queer Latinx of alienation from their ethnic identity in the pursuit of sexual identity.
References
Burton, A. 2006. Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History. London: Duke University Press.
Fergus, E., A. Hurtado, and P. Noguera. n.d. Invisible No More: Understanding the Disenfranchisement of Latino Men and Boys. New York: Routledge.
Ramirez, N. 2005. "The living evidence of desire: Teresita la Campesina and the embodiment of queer Latino community histories." In Archive Stories: Facts, fictions and the writing of history, by A. Burton, 111-135. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Reynolds, R., and S. Robinson. 2016. Gay and Lesbian, Then and Now: Australian Stories from a Social Revolution. Carbon: Black Inc.
Rodriguez, M. 2003. Queer latinidad: Identity practices, discursive spaces. New York: University Press.
Burton, A. 2006. Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History. London: Duke University Press.
Fergus, E., A. Hurtado, and P. Noguera. n.d. Invisible No More: Understanding the Disenfranchisement of Latino Men and Boys. New York: Routledge.
Ramirez, N. 2005. "The living evidence of desire: Teresita la Campesina and the embodiment of queer Latino community histories." In Archive Stories: Facts, fictions and the writing of history, by A. Burton, 111-135. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Reynolds, R., and S. Robinson. 2016. Gay and Lesbian, Then and Now: Australian Stories from a Social Revolution. Carbon: Black Inc.
Rodriguez, M. 2003. Queer latinidad: Identity practices, discursive spaces. New York: University Press.