Decolonizing the Body: Resistance in the Queer, Femme Caribbean

Abstract

When one exists outside the boundaries of what it means to be a person, let alone a ‘good’ womxn, the simple act of existing is a threat to the heteronormative standards present in one’s life (Alexander, 1994; Kempadoo, 2004, p. 27). Within the Caribbean, many colonial discourses on sexuality and race still exist today, where Caribbean womxn are harmed through dehumanizing stereotypes that pin their sexuality and agency with perversion, rejection of nature, and deviancy along with hypersexuality, immorality and purity, despite countries’ ‘independence’ of the colonial world (Reddock, 2007, p. 3-5; Kempadoo, 2004; Alexander, 1994). Using three visual pieces, I will put three of these harmful stereotypes in conversation with decolonial thought found in third-world feminism and Queer thought: “My Labour is Not Unskilled” with rejection of nature, “My Love is Not Unnatural” with perversion, and “My Body is My Own” with agency and opposition of hypersexuality.