The Politics of Language and Self-Naming

Sor Juana was acutely aware that language itself was a contested terrain—she wrote in Spanish during colonial rule, under Church authority, as a woman in a male-dominated intellectual sphere. This concept examines how cisgender identity is constructed through language that often conceals its own politics. The term 'cisgender' itself is recent; before it existed, women and men simply 'were,' their identity naturalized and invisible. By naming cisgender identity explicitly, we denaturalize it—we recognize it as a category, not a fact of nature. Sor Juana's poetry demonstrates her mastery of language as a tool of power and resistance. In examining your own cisgender identity, consider: What words describe your gender, and who created those words? How have you inherited gendered language without questioning it? Can you reclaim or reimagine the language of your identity? What becomes visible when you name your cisgender identity consciously rather than taking it for granted?