356 - Thematic Session. Transgendering Sexual Rights: Lessons from Latin America

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Abstract

In 2012, Argentina became the first country to legally offer gender identity recognition, based on a person’s self-identification, to transgender people. This did not happen in the global, presumably developed North, but in the chaotic, financially struggling South. Social activists in countries such as Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Brazil have fought for rights and recognition for transgendered people. Yet this region faces structural forces that lead many transgender women, in particular, to engage in survival prostitution, and give troubling invisibility to transgender men. Transgender people face structural vulnerabilities enacted through everyday violence; at the same time, some countries have developed degree completion schools, textile and non-street economies, alternative housing, and centers that train on basic employment skills. Traditional sociological approaches to transgender scholarship can be rethought based on these experiences; the advancements and challenges we see in Latin America are important lessons for an interested US American audience.

Sub Unit

• Thematic Sessions

Session Organizer

• Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, American University

Presider

• Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, American University

Panelists

• Alberto Roque Guerra, Cuban Multidisciplinary Association for Sexuality Studies

• Gloria Careaga, National Autonomous University of Mexico

• Carlos Figari, Buenos Aires University

Discussant

• Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, American University