In a country marked by social stratification, deep-rooted conservatism, and intersecting forms of marginalization, Mujeres trans en el Perú: Historias de vida e identidad (Trans Women in Peru: Life Stories and Identity) by Ximena Salazar stands as a groundbreaking and deeply humanizing contribution to Peruvian gender studies.
More than just a book, it is a testimony, an archive of resistance, and an essential lens into what it means to be a transgender woman in contemporary Peru. By focusing on the lived experiences of seven trans women from Lima, Ayacucho, and Iquitos, Salazar crafts a careful and poignant anthropological inquiry that privileges the voices of her subjects over academic abstraction.
One of the book’s most commendable strengths lies in its refusal to center solely on the author’s analytical voice. While Salazar, an anthropologist and academic, does provide a thorough theoretical framework, the heart of the book beats with the voices of the seven women whose stories she documents. These are women whose trans identities are not lived in isolation from the realities of poverty, racism, exclusion, and migration. Most of them come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and several are internal migrants navigating life far from their native lands. As such, their experiences reveal the multifaceted oppression that trans women face in Peru, an oppression that is not only gender-based, but also shaped by class, ethnicity, and geography.
