Trans and indigenous ladies: the America that faces colonial lgtbiphobia | Culture | EUROtoday

Joanna wears a skirt, a bowler hat, and a blanket that covers her. She goes as a cholita on the high of La Paz in Bolivia. Joanna is Aymara and trans. From at the moment, her portrait—and that of different ladies like her from completely different elements of America—is exhibited in Trans Nation: poverty and genderthe photographic exhibition by Antonio López Díaz (Madrid, 53 years outdated), which was introduced this Thursday on the Museum of America in Madrid.

In the fifty images and documentary narratives within the exhibition, large-format portraits are mixed with extra intimate photos and texts that contextualize every story and construct “a mosaic of experiences crossed by resilience, dignity and resistance,” the museum summarizes the exhibition. Thus, ladies who belong to the Mayan and Chortí (Guatemala), Embera Chamí (Colombia), Guna (Panama), Aymara (Bolivia), Diaguita (Argentina), Huancavilva (Ecuador) and Navajo (United States) communities are portrayed.

The exhibition weaves identification, colonial heritage and precariousness to attract the map of a inhabitants that fights to make its actuality seen, which can’t be understood with out seeking to the previous. In addition, the exhibition delves into the origin of the prejudices and LGBTIphobia they endure: the colonial irruption. Some indigenous societies acknowledged various gender identities, outdoors of the binary, earlier than colonial and Christian rule.

“With evangelization, the third gender disappears and the prejudices that we have been carrying since that time affect these women daily because they have very few possibilities. The violence is so great that sometimes their families disown them,” says López, who’s a photojournalist and documentary filmmaker, in addition to a daily contributor to the Planeta Futuro part of EL PAÍS.

Candles, altars and saints

Religiosity is one other recurring aspect within the exhibition. The protagonists keep a deep relationship with the religious: candles, altars and non secular figures could be seen in a number of of the images. “They also want to be accepted within religion,” says López, who began this venture in 2024.

For the writer, the target is to problem the current, to not reopen historic debates. “This is not about revenge or judging the past,” he clarifies whereas touring the museum, which is managed by the Ministry of Culture. The photographer prefers to deal with the lives of the ladies portrayed. “What they have suffered before cannot be erased. People suffer every day from many terrible things around the world. However, I believe that for there to be a better future, things must be fixed; legislation [de protección al colectivo trans] They are important, but it should not stop there, it also depends on the entire society,” he reflects.

The exhibition is integrated into the program Memory, art and trans diversity, with which the museum begins a space for dialogue and reflection around the experiences, memory and presence of trans people in contemporary society. Trans Nation ―in which the state LGTBI+ Federation (Felgtbi+) has also collaborated, in addition to the ministries of Equality and for the Ecological Transition and the demographic challenge (Miteco)― invites us to focus on a reality that has rarely occupied a space outside of marginality or that has not even been included in official narratives. “This is a group of people that has historically been vilified and discriminated against,” comments the photojournalist: “They do not represent a territorial concept, but rather the feeling of belonging.”

In 2017, the Museum of America introduced the exhibition TRANS: range of identities and gender rolesa milestone in his profession, which dropped at the area a mirrored image on the transgression of identification, the cultural building of the physique and its creative illustration. The exhibition centered on the everlasting presence of trans folks in cultures world wide and included representations of indigenous trans ladies from North America, often known as berdaches, in addition to muxes from Oaxaca or tidawinas from Venezuela, amongst others. “As a whole, it proposed a review of the heteronormative and patriarchal discourse, showing other ways of understanding gender beyond the division between masculine and feminine,” the establishment particulars. “On this occasion, the museum reviews the changes in the last decade and analyzes how these experiences are reflected in the representation and identity devices of museums,” they add.