CAMPUS DIRECTORY

Claudia Sofía Garriga-López is an Associate Professor of Queer and Trans Latinx Studies in the Department of Ethnic, Gender, and Queer Studies at California State University, Chico. She holds a PhD in American Studies from New York University’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis. A scholar of trans, queer, feminist, and Latinx social movements across the Américas, her work examines the intersections of gender and sexuality with state governance, public health, environmental justice, and community resilience. She is currently revising her book manuscript Gender For All: Transfeminism in Ecuador, which analyzes twenty years of transfeminist activism, policy interventions, cultural production, and legal reform in Ecuador.

Garriga-López’s teaching and research are deeply intertwined. Her courses center collaborative learning, community building, and hemispheric approaches to queer and trans studies, integrating ethnographic research, oral history, visual culture, literature, and social science methods. Drawing on her extensive work with feminist, queer, and trans activist movements in Ecuador, Puerto Rico, and the United States, she brings a grounded, interdisciplinary, and justice-centered approach to the classroom. Her commitment to inclusive pedagogy includes a “no questions asked” two week extension policy, attention to diverse learning styles, and a strong emphasis on mentoring first-generation, undocumented, transfer, disabled, and LGBTQ+ students. Many of the courses she developed—such as “Sex Work, Queer Desire, and Transfeminism,” “Coloring Queer: Imagining Community,” and “Latinx Genders and Sexualities”—were instrumental in launching the majors in Intersectional Latinx Studies (2019) and Queer and Trans Studies (2021).

Her scholarly profile is marked by a sustained engagement with community-based research, disaster studies, and the arts. Garriga-López completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the Just Futures Initiative: Race, Risk, and Resilience at Florida International University, a Mellon Foundation–funded project that analyzed the environmental and infrastructural conditions shaping disaster vulnerability and community resilience in Miami-Dade County. She also completed a year-long Arts Research in Communities of Color Fellowship, funded by the Social Science Research Council and the Mellon Foundation, in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico (MAC-PR). This interdisciplinary ethnographic work examines how community arts initiatives function as strategies of survival, resistance, and resilience following hurricanes, economic precarity, and other forms of structural abandonment.

Garriga-López has presented her research widely at national and international conferences, including the American Studies Association (ASA), the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), and the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA). She currently serves on the Advisory Board of Women’s Studies Quarterly (WSQ) and the Editorial Board of Transgender Studies Quarterly (TSQ)—two of the most influential journals in feminist and trans studies.

SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF SCHOLARSHIP

Garriga-López’s scholarship has had a substantial impact on the fields of Trans Studies, Latin American Studies, Feminist Studies, and Queer of Color Critique. Her 2016 article “Transfeminist Crossroads: Reimagining the Ecuadorian State” is widely cited in scholarship across the Américas and is recognized as foundational in the study of Latin American transfeminism. Her contribution to the Global Encyclopedia of LGBTQ History, “Transfeminism,” helped establish her as a leading voice in hemispheric and transnational approaches to gender and sexuality. Publications such as “Transfeminist Latinx America” and her Spanish-language translations of earlier works (published in TSQ Now*) extend the reach of Trans Studies into multilingual, interdisciplinary, and regionally diverse contexts—significantly expanding the field’s analytic and geographic scope.

Her work in SSRC Items with Jih-Fei Cheng on “Praxes of Care” brings insights from AIDS activism and trans and queer of color organizing into contemporary debates about public health, racial justice, and collective survival amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Her contributions to edited volumes on femicide, trans political economy, people of color les arts organizations, and community resilience in disaster contexts highlight the breadth of her expertise and her commitment to bridging academic research with urgent social issues.

Through her editorial leadership in TSQ and WSQ, she helps steward key intellectual directions within feminist and trans studies and mentors the next generation of scholars. Across her writing, teaching, and community-engaged research, Garriga-López models an approach to scholarship grounded in justice, collaboration, and hemispheric connection.

COURSES TAUGHT

California State University, Chico

• Introduction to Ethnic Studies
• Latinx Film
• LGBT Issues and Identities
• Coloring Queer: Imagining Community
• Sex Work, Queer Desire, and Transfeminism
• Chicana and Latina Power
• Latinx Genders and Sexuality
• Honors in Ethnic Studies Methods
• Senior Capstone

PUBLICATIONS

Peer-Reviewed Articles

• “Transfeminist Latinx America.” Transgender Studies Quarterly 10(4). (2024)
• “Praxes of Care: The Politics of ‘Intravention’ in the Age of COVID-19.” Items, Social Science Research Council (2021).
• “Hurricane Maria Exposes Puerto Rico’s Stark Environmental and Health Inequalities.” Items, SSRC (2017).
• “Transfeminist Crossroads: Reimagining the Ecuadorian State.” Transgender Studies Quarterly 3(1-2), 104–119 (2016).

Encyclopedia Entries

• “Transfeminism.” In Global Encyclopedia of LGBTQ History, edited by H. Chiang & A. Arondekar. Charles Scribner’s Sons (2019).

Book Chapters

• “Femicide and Transfeminist Justice.” In Confronting Femicide: Multidisciplinary Perspectives from Puerto Rico and Beyond, Palgrave Press (2024).
• “Transfeminist Political Economy.” In Bite Back! Queer Solidarities: Queer Feminisms, Class, and the Quest for New Alliances. Edition Assemblage Press (2024).

Edited Journal Issues

• Co-editor, “Trans Studies en las Américas.” Transgender Studies Quarterly 6(2) (2019).
• Editor, “Transfeminisms.” Sinister Wisdom 128 (2023).

Book Reviews

• “Sex and State Are Action Verbs.” Women’s Studies Quarterly (2024).
• “Blacktinex Broke Back Bridges.” Transgender Studies Quarterly 5(1) (2018).
• “Transnational Circuits of Spirituality.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 24(1) (2018).

Translations

• “Encrucijadas Transfeministas: Reimaginando el Estado Ecuatoriano.” TSQ Now (2021).
• “Transfeminismo.” TSQ Now (2021).
• “Estudios Trans en las Américas.” TSQ Now (2021).

Creative Work

• “Raining Feminism.” Sinister Wisdom (2023).
• Illustrations: “Gloria’s Tree” and “La Aparición.” In Latinas: Struggles & Protests in 21st Century USA, edited by Iris Morales (2018).

Manuscripts in Progress

• Gender For All: Transfeminism in Ecuador. Under review with Duke University Press.