(Inter)sex in the colony. The case of “Mariano” Aguilera (Mexico, 1759)
María Elena Martínez, “Sex and the Colonial Archive: The Case of “Mariano” Aguilera,” HAHR 96:3 421-443.
In the current number of the Hispanic American Historical Review (Vol. 96, Number 3, pp. 421-443) María Elena Martínez presents the case of “Mariano” Aguilera. Born in New Spain in the 18th century and raised as a girl, but living as man, s_he asked ecclesiastical authorities to be declared male in order to marry a woman named Clara López. This failed, as the court declared him_her to be unfit to marry either as a man or as a woman.
The article, according to the author’s own words, “opens further questions about the meanings of hermaphroditism and androgyny in the Atlantic world, the ways in which they shaped medical and legal discourses on sodomy in metropolitan and colonial contexts, and the role of doctors and surgeons in legal cases involving queer bodies and lives”.
The complete text in pdf version is freely available in: “Sex and the Colonial Archive: The Case of “Mariano” Aguilera”
For an abstract see here: http://hahr.dukejournals.org/content/96/3/421.abstract