Runways and perolones: transformationist mediations on the Avenida Libertador, Caracas

Authors

  • Marcia Ochoa University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Thiago de Lima Oliveira Sem Registro de Afiliação

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-9133.v33i2pe227875

Keywords:

transformationists, Queer of colour, Modernities, Venezuela

Abstract

For decades, transformationist Venezuelans have ‘paraded’ along the Avenue of the Liberator in Caracas to exhibit themselves and exercise their trade as sex workers. In Venezuela, the word “transformationist” refers to a persona assigned the masculine sex who occupies the female gender. This essay is an attempt at understanding the transformationist role of the avenue within the framework of queer of color theory and Venezuelan modernity. The Avenue of the Liberator is an urban space developed in the course of a long modernizations process. It is said that the Avenue of the Liberator was born with democracy. Through their location on this avenue, the transformationists negotiate modernity with their bodies and in the Caracas imaginary. From the runway to the ‘perolón’, the transformationists project a powerful presence on this stage that renders them visible while, simultaneously, subjecting them to incredible violence.

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Author Biography

  • Marcia Ochoa, University of California, Santa Cruz

    Marcia Ochoa (she/they) is professor of Feminist Studies and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

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Published

2024-11-26

Issue

Section

Dossier: Territorializing bodies, gender and sexualities

How to Cite

Ochoa, M. (2024). Runways and perolones: transformationist mediations on the Avenida Libertador, Caracas (T. de L. Oliveira , Trans.). Cadernos De Campo (São Paulo, 1991), 33(2), e227875. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-9133.v33i2pe227875