Dan Bustillo
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GFE Emerging Scholars Dan Bustillo

This is a talk about trans Latinx worldmaking projects that are made possible through activists' creative media praxis. I argue that these resistive uses of analog and digital media, which I term "counter-security media," challenge the ways that ethnoracialized gender is built into media and disciplinary structures. The examples of counter-security media that I highlight in this talk span a range of contexts and media forms: trans-led letter-writing activism in prisons and detention centers that re-inscribe transness into a sex-segregated carceral system where gender norms are used as tools of punishment; trans micro-celebrities' creative media praxes that document and circumvent anti-trans discrimination on social media platforms; and transfeminist activists' media strategies that stagger visibility for trans and queer migrants at the Mexico-US border. Together, these examples demonstrate that counter-security media is a powerful tool for organizing and building trans Latinx communities.