Drawing from his book, Brown Transfigurations: Rethinking Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Chicanx and Latinx Studies (2021), Galarte’s lecture will focus on the figure of the Chicano/Latino FTM and the pervasive assumption that Chicano/Latino transmasculinities are invisible. The lecture focuses on representations of transmasculinity within Queer Chicana and Chicana lesbian feminist cultural works, and psychological studies of transsexualism. The sources assembled reveal how the figure of the Chicano/Latino FTM and/or transsexual exist as pathologized, failed, and unimaginable subjects. Galarte demonstrates how their bodies and narratives are often rendered as battlegrounds for shoring up claims to racialized gender categories that bolster cultural nationalisms. He argues that the expressiveness of the trans masculinity embodied by these subjects unravels hegemonic heteropatriarchal Chicano masculinity. Through close readings of selected texts, Galarte propose that the pathologized Chicano transsexual and/or Chicano FTM in actuality, transfigures Chicano/x masculinity.

Francisco J. Galarte is an Assistant Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Arizona, where he is a member of the Transgender Studies Initiative—a collective of faculty that is the first of its kind in the world, that brings together scholars in Transgender Studies from various disciplinary backgrounds to foster cross collaboration in the form of research, writing and teaching. Galarte’s research bridges Chicanx/Latinx Studies and transgender studies. He is the current chief editor of Transgender Studies Quarterly.

---
Imagining Trans Futures is a tri-campus trans studies research cluster bringing together cross-disciplinary scholars, artists, and leaders in conversation around imagining trans futures and the intersections between critical trans studies and trans knowledge production both inside and outside of the academy.

For more information or questions, please contact Ching-In Chen (chingin@uw.edu) and Neil Simpkins (nfsimp@uw.edu)

The organizer of this event is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation. Real-time captioning (CART) will be provided for this event. To request disability accommodation, individuals must contact the Disability Services Office at least ten days in advance at 206.543.6450/V, 206.543.6452/TTY, 206.685.7264 (FAX), or e-mail at dso@uw.edu. If you have any access needs which you want the organizers to know about or further questions about disability accommodation, contact the organizers (nfsimp@uw.edu, chingin@uw.edu).