Justice as Recognition of Intellectual Dignity

Sor Juana's entire career asserted that justice demands recognizing women's intellectual dignity—their capacity to think, question, and contribute to knowledge. This framework expands how we understand justice in cisgender identity contexts. Justice isn't only about cisgender people ceasing to harm others, but about recognizing that all people—including cisgender people—deserve recognition as complex intellectual beings with legitimate experience. Yet this same principle demands that cisgender people extend intellectual dignity to those with different gender experiences. This creates reciprocal obligation: cisgender identity deserves respectful intellectual engagement while cisgender people must grant the same to others. Justice requires that cisgender people not be reduced to their institutional privilege, nor should transgender and non-binary people be reduced to their marginalization. Sor Juana's framework suggests that true justice in gender politics requires mutual recognition of intellectual complexity across all positions. Examining cisgender identity becomes a justice issue—claiming intellectual dignity for one's own experience while granting it equally to all others.