Queering our Lady of Guadalupe

In the context of Latine ethics and liberation theologies, queering Our Lady of Guadalupe offers a critical and liberative approach to honoring the complexity of culturally Catholic and Queer Mexican lived experiences. Specifically, queering our Lady of Guadalupe creates an anti-oppressive theo-ethical framework grounded in the tenets of Latine ethics and theologies of nepantla,  lo cotidiano, el acompañamiento, and doing theology en conjunto. Expanding on these theo-ethical cornerstones, queering our Lady of Guadalupe rejects heteronormativity, homophobia, machismo, marianismo, and any social construction of gender or sexuality which functions to exclude and/or oppress those of us identifying within Queer communities or outside of the sexual/gender norm. Living in the unique tension of both the colonized and colonizer identities, I examine how nepantla as an epistemological framework is limited to a specific hybrid existence and does not apply to all Indigenous experiences. Holding this tension, I prioritize queerness as an invitation to liberative reimaginings of colonial symbols for Queer Mexican Catholics.