Life, death in/ from transvestite writing

Abstract

From a deconstructivist perspective, this essay reflects on the life-death oppositional pair. It takes transvestite writing as a vanishing point towards other ways of thinking/inhabiting life and death, thelifethedeath. On this path, the aim is to account for the vital relationship that exists between writing -and in a paradigmatic way, transvestite writing- and death. We understand that writing opens a space-time hiatus that brings the non-present, the absent, the dead. For this we used the book Travesti/ Una Teoría lo Suficientemente Buena by Marlene Wayar and the ongoing dialogues with her friends and partners: Susy Shock, Claudia Rodríguez; and all her/their dead women. In this way, the text rehearses other possible links with death and dead women in/from transvestite writing. In short, we ask ourselves again and again: what to do with a cemetery in our heads, how to elaborate/write the death of our friends, our partners: all avoidable and dreadful deaths?