Book launch event and discussion: “A Body of One's Own: A Trans History of Argentina”

The Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies and the School of Sociology and Social Policy invite you to a special research seminar to celebrate the publication of a new book by Patricio Simonetto.

The Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies and the School of Sociology and Social Policy invite you to this special research seminar to celebrate the publication of A Body of One's Own: A Trans History of Argentina (University of Texas Press, 2024). The seminar will include a conversation between the book’s author Patricio Simonetto (University of Leeds) and Jack López (University of Bradford).  

For queries about the event, please contact Kim Allen (k.allen1@leeds.ac.uk).

About the book: 

A Body of One's Own is a history of Argentina that examines how trans bodies were understood, policed, and shaped in a country that banned medically assisted gender affirmation practices and punished trans lives. 

As a trans history of Argentina, a country that banned medically assisted gender affirmation practices and punished trans lives, A Body of One’s Own places the histories of trans bodies at the core of modern Argentinian history.

Patricio Simonetto documents the lives of people who crossed the boundaries of gender from the early twentieth century to the present. Based on extensive archival research in public and community-based archives, this book explores the mainstream medical and media portrayals of trans or travesti people, the state policing of gender embodiment, the experiences of those transgressing the boundaries of gender, and the development of homemade technologies from prosthetics to the self-injection of silicone. 

 A Body of One's Own explores how trans activists' challenges to the exclusionary effects of Argentina’s legal, cultural, social, and political cisgender order led to the passage of the Gender Identity Law in 2012. Analyzing the decisive yet overlooked impact of gender transformation in the formation of the nation-state, gender-belonging, and citizenship, this book ultimately shows that supposedly abstract struggles to define the shifting notions of "sex", citizenship, and nationhood are embodied material experiences. 

Speaker biographies: 

Patricio Simonetto is a Lecturer in Gender and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. His research focuses on the queer histories of Latin America. He is the author of  Entre la injuria y la revolución. El Frente de Liberación Homosexual en la Argentina (UNQ, 2017), El dinero no es todo. La compra y venta de sexo en la Argentina del siglo XX (Biblos, 2019) and Money is Not Everything. The Purchase and Sale of Sex in Argentina in the Twentieth Century (The Univesity of North Carolina, 2024). He was awarded the Carlos Monsivais Prize from the Latin American Studies Association in 2021.  

Jack López is an anthropology scholar and Associate Dean EDI at the University of Bradford, whose expertise in intimacy, gendered personhood, sexual and reproductive health is highly regarded. As a champion for LGBTQIA+ inclusivity in academia, he has played a pivotal role in designing policies to promote diversity and equity. Beyond academia, Jack is a sought-after consultant on LGBTQIA+ issues, EDI, and cultural sensitivity, with an impressive track record of spearheading organizational change-making projects for over a decade. He is a member of the health strategy board for Trans Actual UK and a newly appointed trustee for Not A Phase. As a proud queer trans man and a father of four children, Jack lives in the valleys of West Yorkshire, where he enjoys his hobbies, including amateur boxing, music, dance, tattoos, and open-water swimming.