De-colonial grass-root activism and trans-feminist cross-cultural performance, by Elizabeth Vásquez and Joey Hateley.

Our  collaborative process between Project Transgender (Quito, Ecuador) and TransAction (Manchester, UK) documents and discusses the subversive legal strategies and cross-cultural performance in staging the first (trans) gay marriage to change the Matrimonial/Gender Law in Quito, Ecuador.

Project Transgender and TransAction's shared ideologies, led to the creation of this inter-racial trans-national feminist matrimonial project, which attempts to subvert hetero-normative immigration, gay assimilation, gay corporatist imperialist narratives by creating a space where our alternative family values, polyandrous queer kinships and our intersecting communities can be cross culturally represented and legally validated.

Having given many radio, TV, lectures and theatre performances across Ecuador and the UK, from grass-roots venues to ‘Andina Simon Bolivar’ and ‘Central’ University from Oct-Dec 2010, we published an article in May 2011 in conjunction ‘LatinArt.com: An online journal of art and culture’

(see the link buttons)

Our inter-disciplinary process draws on theories of post-colonialism and the intersection of gender, sexuality, race, class, location and trans-national identity to bring a cross-cultural, accessible, sociological, legal-artistic framework to this ambitious project.