Linguistic Sovereignty of the Body

Sor Juana wrote in Spanish and in indigenous Nahuatl, claiming linguistic authority across colonial divides. More broadly, she asserted the right to use language to describe her own experience rather than accepting others' descriptions. Linguistic Sovereignty of the Body means that your identity is formed partly through the language you use to speak about yourself and your body. When systems force you to use language that distorts or denies your experience—when you are told to call oppression protection, or to use clinical terms for your lived reality—your identity is colonized. The practice involves reclaiming language: naming your experience truthfully, choosing words that fit rather than conform, and teaching others how to speak about you. For Body as identity, this might mean rejecting shame-based vocabulary about your body, refusing diagnostic labels that don't fit, or insisting on terms that honor your embodied truth. This is why literature, poetry, and storytelling are acts of identity formation. When you write or speak your body into language of your own choosing, you are exercising a fundamental freedom.