Intersectional Particularity of Cisgender Experience

Sor Juana's cisgender identity as a seventeenth-century Mexican woman of mixed racial heritage created a specific experience utterly different from European women of her time. This concept applies intersectionality to cisgender studies: cisgender identity is not monolithic. A wealthy cisgender white woman experiences gender differently than a poor cisgender Black woman; a cisgender man in rural areas has different constraints than urban cisgender men. The framework explicitly rejects the idea that 'cisgender' names a universal experience or that examining cisgender identity is separate from examining racism, classism, and other systems. For cisgender individuals, this means recognizing both privilege and constraint are always particularized. Someone might have cisgender privilege in gender but face discrimination in race, class, or sexuality. Sor Juana's life demonstrates how multiple systems of power intersect in one person. By centering intersectionality, we avoid the trap of imagining cisgender examination as a neutral or universal project, and instead recognize how knowledge, justice, rights, and identity are always rooted in specific material conditions and power relationships.