On the occasion of the research phase of our inquiry, we invited Carlos Motta to present Gender Talents, his web-based project that engages movements and discourses for gender self-determination within trans and intersex communities internationally.

Gender Talents is an archive of documentary video portraits and a platform for events that engages discourses and movements for gender self-determination within trans and intersex communities.

Gender Talents presents portraits of trans and intersex activists who thoughtfully perform gender as a personal, social, and political opportunity rather than as a social condemnation. Based on interviews conducted in Colombia, Guatemala,India and the United States the project seeks to expose the ways that international activists challenge the bio-cultural “foundations” of society and question gender norms from the perspective of sexuality, class, race, ethnicity, and disability.

Gender Talents documents the ways in which society conditions and regulates bodies and how gender activists build politics of resistance and action. From traditional Joggapa communities in India, to sex workers in Colombia and Guatemala, to intersex activists in the United States, these individuals and communities fight for state recognition, the right to self-determine their identities, self-govern their bodies, access to work, health benefits, and other pressing issues.

The archive of the project can be found here.