Article: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/emt/article/view/41517

This article is the first attempt in Peru to apply an ethnomusicological perspective to the study of dissident music scenes led by singers and artists who escape the enduring man/woman binary gender and sexual structures which continue to dominate not only in Peruvian society but also in the perspectives of contemporary scholarship. It begins with a brief overview from the angle of Peruvian gender studies up to the present day, and a reflection on where our reality slots into the broader academic map. Subsequently, the article focuses on the relationship between gender and sexual diversity and Peruvian popular music, specifically in emerging LGBTI scenes that demonstrate robust “artivism” (activist art) visibilizing new masculinities and femininities that transgress the traditional gender imaginary. Through direct testimonies from LGBTI artists and a selection of their followers, the third section discusses the subversion, innovation, visibility, resistance, and artivism of the contemporary LGBTI scene, thereby documenting the meaning of music, especially in Lima’s transgender community. The author hopes that this article will contribute to documenting and taking seriously LGBTI musical resistances in the context of political life and the fight for equal rights in Peru, and that it may also encourage more researchers to note and document the role of dissident forces in the social organization of Peru.