Brown Trans Figurations - (Latinx: The Future Is Now) by Francisco J Galarte

About the Book

One of the first books focused solely on the trans Latinx experience, Brown Trans Figurations describes how transness and brownness interact within queer, trans, and Latinx historical narratives and material contexts.

Book Synopsis

Honorable Mention for the National Women's Studies Association's 2021 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize
2021 Finalist Best LGBTQ+ Themed Book, International Latino Book Awards
2022 John Leo & Dana Heller Award for Best Single Work, Anthology, Multi-Authored, or Edited Book in LGBTQ Studies, Popular Culture Association
The Alan Bray Memorial Book Prize, GL/Q Caucus, Modern Language Association (MLA)
2022 AAHHE Book of the Year Award, American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education

Within queer, transgender, and Latinx and Chicanx cultural politics, brown transgender narratives are frequently silenced and erased. Brown trans subjects are treated as deceptive, unnatural, nonexistent, or impossible, their bodies, lives, and material circumstances represented through tropes and used as metaphors. Restoring personhood and agency to these subjects, Francisco J. Galarte advances "brown trans figuration" as a theoretical framework to describe how transness and brownness coexist within the larger queer, trans, and Latinx historical experiences.

Brown Trans Figurations presents a collection of representations that reveal the repression of brown trans narratives and make that repression visible and palpable. Galarte examines the violent deaths of two transgender Latinas and the corresponding narratives that emerged about their lives, analyzes the invisibility of brown transmasculinity in Chicana feminist works, and explores how issues such as transgender politics can be imagined as part of Chicanx and Latinx political movements. This book considers the contexts in which brown trans narratives appear, how they circulate, and how they are reproduced in politics, sexual cultures, and racialized economies.

Review Quotes

Galarte's capacious project opens new avenues of inquiry that are crucial to our rapidly changing sociopolitical climates. Brown Trans Figurations is a vital contribution to queer of color scholarship...[and] is one of a few texts that consider brownness and transness as singular co/existence.-- "Chiricú Journal" (11/1/2024 12:00:00 AM)

There is no doubt that it is a seminal text for Chicanx/Latinx, gender, sexuality, queer, and trans studies, and it has applications in fields such as education. But it will also have a lasting and far-reaching impact on anyone interested in these subjects.-- "Aztlán" (11/22/2024 12:00:00 AM)

Everyone would benefit from reading this book, and learning about the brown trans community...The book is extremely relevant and important in this current political climate that has villainized both the trans and Latinx community for different reasons. Libraries that have LGBTQ and Latinx collections should consider purchasing this book. If Galarte has shown anything, it is that the issues within those communities intersect and must be addressed simultaneously.-- "International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion" (1/25/2023 12:00:00 AM)

Brown Trans Figurations is an extremely well-written and groundbreaking book, accessible yet simultaneously quite complex, in Latina/o/x studies. It will be required reading in queer, trans, women's, gender, and sexuality studies and in American studies and ethnic studies classrooms...Brown Trans Figurations is crucial reading for persons interested in the differences between queer and trans Latinx experience, the tensions between Chicana feminism and transgender and transsexual lives, and the racism that infects dominant representations of trans and queer Chicanxs and Latinxs...Galarte's theorization of brown trans fgurations transforms Latina/o studies in profound ways.-- "Latino Studies" (2/2/2022 12:00:00 AM)

A needed contribution to trans Latinx studies. [Brown Trans Figurations] offers a series of compelling close readings of literature, photography, film, and other accounts of Chicanx trans people and representation in the United States.-- "Los Angeles Review of Books" (3/2/2022 12:00:00 AM)

[Brown Trans Figurations'] most accessible sections provide thorough and rewarding analyses of popular culture...scholars in the fields of Latinx and gender studies will appreciate this detailed look at an underexplored subject.-- "Publishers Weekly" (10/27/2020 12:00:00 AM)

About the Author

Francisco J. Galarte is an assistant professor of American Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of New Mexico. He is a coeditor of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly and the author of the essay "Transitions: The Dolorous Return of a Chicana/o Trans-Fronterizo," in Claiming Home, Shaping Community: Testimonios de los valles. His work has also appeared in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies and Chicana/Latina Studies.