Self-Fashioning and Deliberate Representation

Sor Juana carefully managed her self-presentation through portraiture, correspondence, and strategic revelation—constructing a public persona of the intellectual nun that commanded respect and complicated expectations. This concept recognizes that gender non-conforming identity is not only discovered but deliberately crafted through performance, sartorial choices, linguistic register, and selective disclosure. Self-fashioning is not superficial or inauthentic but rather a sophisticated practice of identity-making under conditions where one's existence must be justified and explained. Across cultures, gender non-conforming people employ conscious strategies of presentation: curating aesthetic expressions, narrating their own stories, controlling which audiences see which aspects of self. Sor Juana's method shows how deliberate self-representation becomes a form of power: by controlling the narrative about oneself, one resists others' complete definition. This framework celebrates the artistry and intelligence involved in gender non-conforming self-making.