The muxes of Juchitán: Representations of Non-binary Gender Identities in Contemporary Photography from Mexico

Gasiorowski, Dominika

Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (2018), 95, (8), 895–914.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2018.52
Language: English
Pages: 20

Abstract

Nicola Ókin Frioli’s series of portraits entitled ‘We are Princesses in a Land of Machos’ (2004) represents the muxes of Juchitán, who occupy the non-binary gender position identifying as neither men nor women. Through analysing these images, this paper explains how still photography represents and contains alternative understandings and expressions of gender. Ókin Frioli’s photographs are a visual marker of how the muxe phenomenon relates to notions of femininity, in a context where local Zapotec cultural legacies allow for different expressions of gender than elsewhere in Mexico. Informed by Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, such a viewpoint allows for framing representations of non-binary gender identities as a challenge to identitarian perspectives, and for examining gender as a mechanism of oppression.

La serie de retratos titulada ‘We are Princesses in a Land of Machos’ de Nicola Ókin Frioli representa los muxes de Juchitán, que ocupan una posición no binaria de género y no se identifican como hombres ni como mujeres. El presente artículo explica el proceso de representar diferentes expresiones de género mediante un análisis de las imágenes de Frioli. Sus fotografías relacionan la posición de los muxes con nociones de femenidad, en un contexto en el que las tradiciones zapotecas permiten manifestaciones de género diferentes de las existentes en cualquier otro lugar de México. Así se formula el marco teórico instruido por la teoría sobre la performatividad de género de Judith Butler, que conceptualiza estas representaciones como un desafío a las perspectivas identitarias y examina género como un mecanismo de opresión.

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