"This Pussy Actually Grabs Back": A Trans Latina Expansion of "Pussy"

Abstract:During the 2017 Women's March, there was a sea of "pussyhats," worn in rebuke of the president's cocky statement that he can freely "grab" women "by the pussy." Critiques emerged from various communities marginalized within the Women's March and the Pussyhat Project, by women of color, transgender folks, and sex workers. I engage with these important critiques. However, in an attempt to push the scholarly conversation beyond calls for increased intersectionality and inclusivity that I argue may rest on cisgenderist and transnormative assumptions in regard to pussyhats, I offer a trans of color critique of pussyhats based on ethnographic research with sex-working transgender Latina women in Chicago. The women, who have not received genital reconstructive surgery, freely and frequently talk about their pussies. Moreover, they creatively utilize their pussies to survive and at times thrive in Chicago's sexual economy of labor. Centering their experiences and epistemologies, I argue for a trans of color expansion of "pussy," "woman," and thus feminism. In response to the critiques, the Women's March banned the pussyhat after the first year. I argue that the vague pleas for intersectionality and inclusivity and the ban on the pussyhat are based in binaristic and additive understandings of gender, race, and feminism. I hope to move beyond binaristic and additive assumptions and toward a logic of expansion that allows for unlimited possibilities for women, transgender people, and feminists. Furthermore, I argue that centering the resistance of sex-working transgender Latinas is imperative for feminist change in the post-Trump era.