Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Criminal Case of Juana Aguilar: Adjudicating Gender in Colonial Central America

The Criminal Case of Juana Aguilar: Adjudicating Gender in Colonial Central America

Sellers-García, Sylvia

Paperback

Series: Latin American Originals

Central American History

ISBN10: 0271100346
ISBN13: 9780271100340
Publisher: Penn State University Press
Published: Nov 25 2025
Pages: 118
Weight: 0.52
Height: 0.50 Width: 5.40 Depth: 8.40
Language: English

In 1792 in rural San Salvador, Juana Aguilar was accused of committing what the authorities called a heinous crime. Aguilar was suspected of being a hermaphrodite, and while this in and of itself was not a crime, determining Aguilar's sex would resolve whether the relationships Aguilar had with women were criminal. Aguilar's possessions were confiscated, the accused was placed in jail, and a long criminal case ensued. Over the course of this case, almost a dozen medical experts examined Aguilar's person, and Aguilar escaped imprisonment twice before finally being apprehended in distant Guatemala City. In an age when medicine and science were gaining ever more authority in the process of construing identity, the legal authorities of colonial Central America relied heavily on doctors and midwives to determine what Aguilar really was.

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