Lohana Berkins: A Latin American Travesti Theory of the Body

Abstract

This article articulates Lohana Berkins’ Latin American travesti theory. Centred on the body and her feminist-influenced lived experience, Berkins’ theory is deeply concerned with intersectionality as a corporeal experience. Drawing from oral presentations, media coverage, published interviews, and Berkins’ writing, we elaborate on a thread of aspects that distinguish this Latin American travesti theorizing. From Berkins’ contributions, we illustrate the ‘body-for-others’ – a result of, and resistance to, the male gaze – against a broader, internal embodied satisfaction that moves beyond deficit readings of travesti lives as ‘travesti body-being’. Her situated knowledge production was influenced by her collective experience with other travestis, as was her coalitional work and struggles with cisgender women; in particular, we centre her identity and corporeality arguments in order to constitute Berkins’ travesti theorizing of the self as a ‘we’. We conclude with the implications of elevating Berkins’ status to that of a feminist theorist.