Weaving the trans/transvestite resistance

Abstract

The first Latin American transvestite newspaper —it’s said out there— appears in Argentina: el Teje. It was published between 2007 and 2012, mainly because of the work from the Communication and Gender Technologies Area of the Rector Ricardo Rojas Cultural Center. The newspaper arises from a journalism workshop coordinated by María Moreno. There, Paula Viturro proposed the creation of the newspaper as a way to give the transvestites a positive reinsertion (el Teje 2007, 20) With the aim of making other views visible, dissidents of the heteronormative system and the possibilities that trans dissidence has to write or express their own narratives without the need to see themselves through the male/female binaries. From different angles, el Teje is positioning as a counterspeech; from its size —larger than conventional magazines—, its colorful and striking cover, naming itself as a newspaper what we could actually “understand” or “know” as a magazine, or even in its very title: starting with lowercase and highlighting the “T” as a subliminal way of proudly displaying the “T” of transvestite, trava, trans, etc. But also, from what this word means for transvestites in Argentina, since it’s part of their secret and accomplice vocabulary, especially among those engaged in sex work.