Photography of Compañerx, the performance at Plaza Bolívar, Bogotá, July 2024. As a part of the Series " Compañerx" created alongside stylist Lorena Maza, writer César Vallejo, and trans activists Juli Salamanca and Yoko Ruiz. Photography by: Camila Falquez Martinez
RSVP Link Forthcoming
As trans rights and embodiment are under attack in the United States, trans activists and legal activists are advancing a broad trans rights agenda across the Caribbean. Colombia’s proposed Ley Integral Trans, for instance, aims to protect the rights of transgender and non-binary individuals, while ensuring their full equality and participation in all areas of society. Meanwhile, like millions of others, queer and trans people in the Caribbean have historically lived across and beyond national boundaries. Our invited guests discuss their experiences of advocating for trans rights, sustaining creative practice, and convening community while crossing gendered, legal and geographic boundaries. The conversations will be accompanied by performances that illustrate the complexity of living life across boundaries.
The first panel, focused on the struggle for rights, recognition, and equality in Colombia, stages a conversation between Liga de Salud Trans activists Juli Salamanca Cortés and Yoko Ruiz and their artistic collaborators,photographer Camila Falquez and author Cesar Vallejo. Moderated by Professor Bel Olid (U. Chicago).
The second panel examines the Trans Caribbean through its artistic, social, and legal movements through a conversation with advocate and program strategist Dane Lewis, interdisciplinary artist Edrimael Delgado Reyes (LaBoriVogue), installation and performance artist Carlos Martiel, and Black Trans Liberation activist Qween Jean. Moderated by Professor Leo Douglas (NYU Liberal Studies). This panel threads together experiences that cross Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and the United States.
The closing reception features performances by poet Suzanne Persard, poet Darrel Alejandro Holnes and artist Edrimael Delgado Reyes (LaBoriVogue). Persard is published in the poetry anthology I Will Not Go: Translations, Transformations, and Chutney Fractals (Kaya Press, 2024), and Holnes is published in When Language Broke Open: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Black Writers of Latin American Descent (U. Arizona Press, 2023).
The daylong program is made possible with support from the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), The Latinx Project, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality (CSGS), Hemispheric Institute, Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, and the Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora (CSAAD).