The paradox of how cisgender identity is assumed to be grounded in the body while simultaneously requiring the mind to transcend bodily limitations and expectations.
Sor Juana's life reveals a profound tension: her cisgender female body was the source of both her assignment to gender and her exclusion from intellectual spaces supposedly reserved for minds. Yet her own intellectual practice required treating the body as almost irrelevant—the mind as the essential self. This concept explores the paradox at the heart of cisgender identity: it is supposedly 'natural,' rooted in biological sex, yet requires constant denial or transcendence of the body's actual experiences, needs, and multiplicities. A cisgender woman is told her identity comes from her body, yet is educated to think of herself as primarily a mind. A cisgender man is told his identity is grounded in physical strength and sexual capacity, yet is expected to transcend bodily needs through reason and discipline. This concept asks: How has your cisgender identity required you to relate to your body? Where are you told your gender 'naturally' comes from, and where are you told to ignore your body entirely? Can you develop a relationship to your body in cisgender identity that is neither purely deterministic nor purely transcendent?
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