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CARIBBEAN QUILT 
2023 VOL. 7 NO. 1 
 

 120 

 

                                                                                  

 
 

                                                       

Decolonizing the Body: Resistance in the Queer, Femme 

Caribbean 
 
Maria Vidal Valdespino   
Faculty of Arts and Science, University of Toronto 

 
Maria Vidal Valdespino is a first-generation immigrant from the cumbia, bolillo-loving borough of Ixtapalapa, Mexico City, humming her way to a 

brighter future on the 35 Jane bus. She is a multimedia artist inspired by her and her family's encounters with migration, poverty, love, and resilience. 

She hopes to create feelings of representation through her art by celebrating racialized and disabled womxn and their bodies. She is majoring in 

Critical Studies in Equity and Solidarity with two minors in Sociology, and Women and Gender Studies. 

                                                                                  
 
KEYWORDS: 

Decolonial 

Feminism 

Third World 

Labour 

Queer Theory 

Sexuality 

Radical Love 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
VISUAL SYNOPSIS 

                                                                                        
When one exists outside the boundaries of what it means to be a person, let alone a ‘good’ womxn, the simple act of 

existing is a threat to the heteronormative standards present in one’s life (Alexander, 1994; Kempadoo, 2004, p. 27). 

Within the Caribbean, many colonial discourses on sexuality and race still exist today, where Caribbean womxn are 

harmed through dehumanizing stereotypes that pin their sexuality and agency with perversion, rejection of nature, and 

deviancy along with hypersexuality, immorality and purity, despite countries’ ‘independence’ of the colonial world (Red-

dock, 2007, p. 3-5; Kempadoo, 2004; Alexander, 1994). Using three visual pieces, I put three of these harmful stereotypes 

in conversation with decolonial thought found in third-world feminism and Queer thought: “My Labour is Not Unskilled” 

with rejection of nature, “My Love is Not Unnatural” with perversion, and “My Body is My Own” with agency and opposi-

tion of hypersexuality.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

Caribbean Quilt 
Journal Homepage: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cquilt/index 
 
 



CARIBBEAN QUILT 
2023 VOL. 7 NO. 1 
 

 121 

WORKS CITED 

                                                                      
Alexander, J. M. “Not just (any) body can be a citizen: The politics of law, sexuality and postcoloniality in Trinidad and Tobago 

 and the Bahamas.” Feminist Review, 1994, vol.48, pp.5-23.   

 

Green, C. “Gender, Race and Class in the Social Economy of the English-speaking Caribbean.” Social and Economic Studies,  

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Kempadoo, K. (2004). “Introduction: Thinking about the Caribbean.” In Sexing the Caribbean, pp. 1-14. Routledge, 2014. 

https://www-taylorfrancis-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/chapters/mono/10.4324/9780203338087-2/introduction-thinking  

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