Colombian, Musicologist, and Maricón: When Music Becomes Resistance

Abstract

This article weaves an autobiographical narrative with a musicological and ethnographic analysis of the ways LGBTQI+ people in Colombia have transformed music into a tool of resistance. From a situated standpoint as a Colombian, mestizo, cisgender, gay musicologist, the author offers a self-reflective approach to music as a space of expression, exclusion, and reivindication. The first section examines personal experiences in the city of Pasto, where Latin American popular music operated as a mechanism of heteronormative regulation throughout childhood and adolescence; it also discusses the impact of early migration to Norway, where transnational music such as Shakira’s opened possibilities for new experiences of liberation. The second section provides a critical survey of scholarly production on music and sex-gender diversity, highlighting the limitations of Anglophone frameworks and the need for intersectional, Latin American perspectives. Finally, the article presents findings from the research project Sounding a Queer Rebellion! LGBTQI+ Musical Resistances in Latin America, focused on musicians in Colombia who have re-signified traditional and contemporary genres to denounce structural violence against dissident bodies. Through cases such as singer-songwriter Magdalena Moreno and her Afro-transvesti bullerengue, the article explores how music articulates lived experiences marked by racism, classism, and transphobia, and how terms such as maricón may be reclaimed from standpoints grounded in the Global South.