Flawed Bodies: Enlightenment Institutions and the Case of Juana Aguila

This paper considers the criminal case of Juana Aguilar, an intersex person tried for various crimes in colonial San Salvador and Guatemala, as a window onto institutions of the enlightenment period. Aguilar was accused in 1792 for crimes relating to their relationships with women. The nature of the crimes depended on the determination of Aguilar’s sex; consequently, multiple medical examinations were conducted upon Aguilar while they were incarcerated. But there was no easy resolution to the seemingly simple question about Aguilar’s “true” sex. Over the course of almost fifteen years, Aguilar was examined eleven times, escaped incarceration twice, reinvented themself as a peddler, and was finally acquitted in Guatemala City in 1803. The story of how Aguilar lived and loved, survived their trials, fled a relentless justice system, and made a career for themself despite the court’s verdict is compelling entirely on its own. But in the illuminating contexts of Aguilar’s moment, the story also reveals a larger history about a modern age that has come to define who we are through institutions and social structures—medical science, criminal justice, race thinking, and religion—that are complex and deeply flawed: flawed bodies. This paper examines those bodies to consider how they functioned and how they created enduring categories of identity.