The Intersex Body as Site of Contention in "Mami y Yo y Mi Gallito" by Arisleyda Dilone

• In Event: Latinx Sexualities

Abstract

Arisleyda Dilone’s visual narrative Mami, Yo, y mi Gallito documents the film-maker’s coming of age in an intersex body. Born in the Dominican Republic and having moved to New York at the age of seven, Dilone explores in retrospect how her body deviated from the norm, consequently challenging what it means not to be but to become a woman. My paper analyzes the performance beyond language of an intersex body that grew up between two cultures (North American and Caribbean), two languages (English and Spanish). Historically, intersex bodies have been mutilated in order to maintain a heteronormative ideal of gender and sexuality. If language eradicates possibility for intersex bodies, of an intersex reality, how does the intersex subject choose to perform within the binary? What are the compromises? Which language becomes more accessible to the body? Through which culture is the intersex body visible? Dilone’s visual narrative proposes a reconfigured space where the body itself becomes the site of contestation to white cis-heteronormative culture. Using Elizabeth Grosz’s theory of corporeal feminism alongside Garcia Peña’s Borders of Dominicanidad, I will center the body as the site through which culture, language, and performance are negotiated.

Author

• Laura G Perez-Munoz