1st Edition

From Toads to Queens Transvestism in a Latin American Setting

By John Dececco, Phd Copyright 1999
    176 Pages
    by Routledge

    176 Pages
    by Routledge

    The information in From Toads to Queens: Transvestism in a Latin American Setting (a 2000 Lammy Nominee) is crucial to understanding Latin American culture and its relation to HIV prevention. You’ll find research findings that offer insights into and analysis of the sexual culture and risk factors that place transvestites in the sex trade and their customers at risk of contracting HIV. This information could prove valuable to developing preventions and interventions for similar populations in countries all over the world.

    In From Toads to Queens, transvestites in the sex trade and their customers share fascinating personal accounts from their daily lives, including details of their sexual encounters. Specifically you will gain insight into:

    • sexual practices
    • pay rates in the sex trade
    • types of lovers and sexual partners
    • locations of “work”
    • conceptions of fashion and beauty among transvestites
    • relations between transvestites, the police, and gay bashers
    • clients who are heterosexual men
    • drug consumption and unsafe sex

      From this book, you will gain a comprehensive analysis of Latin transvestites, how this population questions assumptions about sexual orientation and practice, and how they are affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Most importantly, From Toads to Queens documents boundry-crossing individuals’existence and subverts the simplistic division of people into traditional psychiatric categories, a crucial first step in devising ways to decrease the rates of HIV infection among specific populations.

    Contents Foreword
    • Preface
    • Acknowledgments
    •  Introduction
    •  Chapter 1. Expulsion from Eden
    • Fernando
    •  Early Awareness
    • Chapter 2. From Toads into Queens
    • Creating the Magic
    • Choosing a Gender
    • Expressing Separate Personalities
    •  Feeling Like a Princess
    • Chapter 3. The Neighbors
    • The Libano
    • The Paqueteo (ital) Revolution
    • Chapter 4. The Battle for Clinica Biblica
    • The District
    • The Transvestites
    • The Colorientos (ital)
    •  Johns and Neighbors
    • The Association
    • The Governor
    • The Public Ombudsman
    • The Police
    • The Constitutional Court
    • Chapter 5. Priscilla and Prevention
    • Lack of Support Among Transvestites
    • Internal Divisions
    • Lack of Support from Lovers
    • Homophobia and AIDS
    • Off to Miami?
    • Chapter 6: The Business of Prostitution
    • Discrimination at Work
    • Transvestites’ Incomes
    • Reasons for Transvestites’ Success
    • Chapter 7. Drugs
    • Crack Is King
    • Basuko (ital)
    • Sex and Drugs
    • Chapter 8. Top-Man, Bottom-Man
    • A Sexual Encounter
    • Transvestites Are Not Passive Partners
    • Love and Condoms Don’t Mix
    • Unsafe Sex Remains a Problem
    • Chapter 9: The Lovers of Libano
    • Who Are They?
    • Heterosexual and Homosexual Activity
    • In the Transvestites’ World, the Penis Does Not Make the Man
    • Self-Definition As Cachero (ital)
    • Partners’ Knowledge of AIDS
    • Chapter 10. The Sky Is the Limit
    • The Basketball Player
    • Inconsistent Condom Use
    • Taxi! Taxi!
    • Yet Another Combination
    • Not Even Lesbians Escape
    • Conclusion
    • Is Transvestism Revolutionary?
    • A Transvestite President
    • Notes
    • Index

    Biography

    Jacobo Schifter, PhD