In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

217 14 Latina Lesbianas, BiMujeres, and Trans Identities Charting Courses in the Social Sciences LUZ CALVO AND CATR IÓNA RUEDA ESQUIBEL This essay reviews the research on Latina lesbians, an understudied population in the social sciences. Migdalia Reyes explains, “Historically, most research and treatment has focused on men, with some recent attention to African American and Latino men. Because of the AIDS epidemic, some attention has recently been given to exploring the treatment needs of gay males. Yet Latina lesbians are one of the least researched population groups.”1 Interestingly, despite the paucity of empirical studies on this population, there is a rich body of Latina lesbian creative work circulating at film festivals, poetry readings, and comedy shows and in short stories, anthologies, theater, performance art, and a significant number of novels. This creative production has inspired an equally rich body of critical work on Latina lesbian culture and identity.2 In this article, we continue the detective work begun by Esquibel in her search for Chicana lesbian fiction, which culminated in the publication of With Her Machete in Her Hand: Reading Chicana Lesbians. In seeking out references to queer Latinas and WSW (women who have sex with women) in social science research, we have found several sources of interest. Although few take queer Latinas as their sole object of study, nevertheless we find subjects that are recognizable as queer Latinas or WSW.3 Some of the themes that emerge from the literature include formations of identity , both gender and sexual, the culture of silence, and the social context of violence. We will address these issues in order, before turning to our assessment of the field and potential areas of future research. Our reading of this emerging field requires that we address the contested nature of the identities “Latina lesbian ,” “Latina WSW,” and “queer Latina.” A pivotal moment in the formation of an imagined community of Latina lesbians was the publication by Juanita Ramos (Díaz) of Compañeras: Latina Lesbians (1987), a collection of creative works and oral histories that produced an imagined community of Latina lesbians, linked the disparate experiences of New York Puerto Rican lesbians, Bay area Chicana 218 LUZ CALVO AND CATRIÓNA RUEDA ESQUIBEL lesbians, Cuban lesbians in Miami—rural with urban, middle class with working class, older with younger. The emergence of this volume was inextricably tied to women of color publishing and activism in the 1980s, especially the publication of Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa’s This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981), which prominently features Latina lesbian voices. The rhetorical force of these two volumes (among others) was to create connections , real and imagined, between lesbians of color living across the United States and to produce new “coalitional” identities, such as “Latina lesbians” and “women of color.” These identities, however, were not simply produced through the publication of texts; rather, they were profoundly influenced by the civil rights, women’s rights, and gay liberation movements and their concomitant difficulties in dealing simultaneously with issues of race, gender, and sexuality . Yolanda Retter and Juana María Rodríguez have documented the history of queer Latina social and political organizations in the post–civil rights era. The formation of these organizations and the surge in publications (mostly from small feminist presses) were simultaneous and synergistic occurrences: members of Latina lesbian organizations hosted Latina lesbian authors for readings and talks; in some cases, the authors themselves belonged to the organizations . The years following the publication of Compañeras have seen an explosion of cultural production by, for, and about queer Latinas.5 The emergence of queer activism and queer theory has led to a critical engagement with previously entrenched lesbian feminist versions of identity. Rigid dichotomies—such as between male and female, heterosexual and homosexual—have given way to an ever-growing multiplicity of identity formations, gendered bodies, and fluid desires. Bisexual Latina activists, who had hitherto been asked to work silently under the banner of “Latina lesbian,” have challenged their erasure and exclusion. In claiming their place, they are also claiming their history, for many Latina lesbian organizations were founded with the help of bisexual mujeres. Gender-queer lesbians are demonstrating connections between contemporary “trans” identities and historical “butches.” Reflecting these changes, in 2006 the Lesbian Caucus of the National Association of Chicano and Chicana Studies changed its name to the Lesbian, BiMujeres, and Trans Caucus. Thus, “Latina lesbian” must be used...

Share