The Cauxin-femme binary: Femme performativity as a response to violence in Guyana

Abstract

The Caribbean region has a long history of violence and conflict due to colonization and contemporary neocolonial policies and structures. The region’s political, economic, and social climate is overshadowed by activism that centers legal repeal of homophobic laws left intact by colonial powers. These movements have created a polarization between the mainstream groups seeking legal changes, and those who are denied and erased from these discourses. This article is an examination of lesbian, bisexual, queer and gay women of mixed-race middle-class status in the city of Georgetown, Guyana as they negotiate racialized heteropatriarchal violence, a space that offers a unique place in which to understand how different queer subjects experience violence within Guyana. This article examines a set of interrelated questions: In what ways do women who love women perceive their gender performances? In what ways is femme-ness embodied to resist violence and yet is a site of violence? The analysis reveals the ways in which women embody a strategic femme-ness in a political, racial, class, and gender hierarchical society. As the country becomes increasingly incorporated into a global queer culture, divisions within the queer community are further sharpened, with racial, class, sexual, gender, and regional boundaries shifting and forging new lived realities for queer subjects.

Keywords:

• Strategic femme-ness
• violence
• femme
• women-lovin’ women
• cauxin
• Caribbean
• Guyana
• race
• gender
• class
• heteropatriarchy
• intersectionality

Notes

1 Racialized heteropatriarchal refers to “a set of idealized, institutionalized, socio-economic, socio-cultural and political forms of manhood, and while these forms might be unattainable to most men, men are certainly encouraged into achieving them” (Crichlow, DeShong & Lewis, 2014, p. 2).

2 Ethics approval was granted by York University, Toronto Ontario.

3 The seawall is a 280-mile wall that runs along the coast of the capital city of Georgetown. The wall shields and protects the coastal land from the Atlantic Ocean. In the evenings and weekends, the seawall is a place where people gather to hang out and socialize. There are vendors selling food, sodas, and alcohol, with fairs and rides set up for children. The sea is a space where people go to “lime,” which is a slang term that describes hanging out in a public space.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Preity R. Kumar

Preity Kumar holds a Ph.D. in gender, feminist and women’s Studies from York University, Toronto, Canada. Her work examines same-sex women’s relationships, violence and LGBTQ rights in Guyana and within the broader Caribbean. She has taught at York University and George Brown College. Additionally, she is a co-founder of Lotus, a community organization in Toronto which works with Caribbean women that addresses issues of domestic violence, poverty, marginalization and lack of spaces in the city.