Revisiting Queer Puerto Rican Sexualities: Queer Futures, Reinventions, and Un-Disciplined Archives--Introduction

• Published in: Centro journal 2018-06, Vol.30 (2), p.6-41
• Main Authors: La Fountain-Stokes, Lawrence, Ma
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome; Activism; Activists; AIDS; Archives & records; Bisexuality; Conservatism; Culture; Decolonization; Diaspora; Domestic violence; Double consciousness; Education; Environmentalism; Erotica; Family law; Feminism; Gays & lesbians; HIV; Homosexuality; Human immunodeficiency virus; Hurricanes; Lesbianism; LGBTQ people; Lorde, Audre; Marriage; Marriage customs; Marriage law; Parents & parenting; Political activism; Puerto Rican literature; Puerto Ricans; Radicalism; Reproductive rights; Sexual orientation; Sexuality; Transgender persons; Visibility; Women; Word meaning; Writers
• ISSN: 1538-6279; 2163-2960

After nearly fifty years of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) Puerto Rican activism, even more decades of homoerotic gay and lesbian Puerto Rican literature and culture, and extremely valuable queer academic and community scholarship, we now live in a radically transformed environment marked by much progress but also by exclusions and new challenges.1 This special issue on Revisiting Queer Puerto Rican Sexualities: Queer Futures, Reinventions, and Un-Disciplined Archives looks to the future as well as to the past to help map the new queer Puerto Rican literary, cultural, political and scholarly landscape in the archipelago and its diaspora.2 What does the word "queer" currently mean in Puerto Rican contexts? What is the status of Puerto Rican sexuality studies, more broadly defined than simply the sphere of the queer or LGBT? What are its intersections with feminism, environmentalism, decoloniality, reproductive justice, equal marriage and parenting rights, health, transgender politics, and cultural and activist expression? What are the strengths and weaknesses of Puerto Rican queer and sexuality studies? How have things changed since the publication of the previous CENTRO Journal special issue on this topic in the Spring of 2007, particularly given historic changes in marriage law, the dramatic rise of transgender visibility and activism, advances in HIV/ AIDS medications, and the resurgence of conservatism in Puerto Rico and the United States? And how are queer Puerto Ricans reckoning with the impact of the fiscal crisis and of Hurricanes Irma and María?