“Trans of Color, an Oxymoron: Sacredness, Selfhood, and Impressibility Beneath Animal Flesh”

PJ DiPietro, Syracuse University

Infrahuman flesh foregrounds colonial differences as they lie between animal and trans-monstrous embodiments. By engaging the body-politics of travesti communities in Argentina as well as queer and trans* Latinx communities in California, a novel model for decolonizing transgender arises. This model shifts our attention away from (trans)gender mobilities. Instead, it points to impressible transitions between mundane and spiritual domains underwritten by Quechua/Aymara and Nahua/K’ich’e cosmologies.