The right to define one's own identity outside imposed colonial or patriarchal categories, mirroring Sor Juana's intellectual autonomy and hijra/kothi self-determination.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz fought to author her own intellectual and spiritual identity despite institutional pressure to conform. This concept applies directly to hijra and kothi communities who have historically created self-defined social roles, names, and identities outside the Hindu-Islamic-colonial gender binary. Rather than accepting externally imposed classifications, South Asian gender-diverse people have exercised epistemic authority—the right to know and name themselves. Sor Juana's defense of women's right to study, write, and think independently parallels the hijra claim to spiritual and social legitimacy through guru-chela lineages and community recognition. This framework validates identity not through state documentation or medical certification, but through lived experience, community acknowledgment, and intellectual assertion of one's own truth.
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