To the emancipation of cisgender coloniality

A critique of the erasure of colonized subjectivities

Abstract

We aim to present a triple critique: 1) to the Western imposition of eurocentered female emancipation strategies; 2) to the westernization of gender studies from colonized nations; 3) and to the gap in decolonial gender studies in relation to the experiences of trans bodies. Therefore, we mobilized the disagreements between the authors Oyewùmí and Rita Segato, in order to expose, from the perspective of both, a critique of the imposition of a westernized feminism on non-european societies. Based on this criticism, we elaborated another axis of this imposition – the westernization of knowledge produced by scholars from African and Latin American countries. As a complement to such counter-hegemonic positions, we present a reflection on the need to demarcate, in decolonial studies on gender and sexuality, the factor of “cisgenderism” and the recognition of violence suffered by trans people. Violence that is a legacy of colonialism, as well as the historicide of cultures of native peoples, narrated here by Sandra Benites. We approach the studies of Lélia Gonzalez through the intersection between the concepts of race and gender, and demonstrate how bodies that are different from the western, white, male, heterosexual and cisgender body are subjugated by the forces of the colonialities. Furthermore, we point to an existing gap in decolonial gender studies, with regard to transgenderity. We defend, therefore, that a decolonial strand should expand to aggregate all non-normative bodies, and should point out the flaws that it commits itself, in order to serve one of its main purposes: the decolonization of knowledge.