Nación Trans is a photographic project by Antonio López Díaz that explores the historical and current roots of the discrimination faced by Indigenous trans women in America.
Part of the process of colonization initiated with the arrival of the Europeans, when conquest and evangelization imposed a system of domination that profoundly transformed the social, cultural and spiritual structures of the native peoples. This process not only involved territorial dispossession and racial marginalization, but also the imposition of a moral order based on gender binarism and normative sexuality.
Before colonization, many Indigenous societies recognized diverse gender identities. Figures such as the Zapotec muxes, the Mapuche empupillan, the Navajo nadleeh or the wigudun gunas held significant places in their communities. However, the colonial system progressively erased these identities, reducing and repressing them under exclusionary Western categories.
Nación Trans portrays how these colonial legacies continue to shape the lives of Indigenous trans women. Gender and racial discrimination causes family expulsion, precariousness and vulnerability.
The project also makes visible the resilience and resistance strategies of these women. The idea of Nación Trans proposes a community based on solidarity, the struggle for bodily autonomy and new forms of belonging from the margins.
© Ministerio de Cultura - Gobierno de España