The archive of queer comics memorializing and remembering the AIDS epidemic is marked by absence. While there are a number of comics and graphic novels that reflect on the AIDS crisis and the experiences of those who lived and died during that time, the experiences of transgender people, and especially trans people of color, are largely missing from this graphic archive. The comics and graphic novels that discuss the AIDS crisis are, almost entirely, focused on cisgender white gay men. Though trans people contracted HIV at similar or higher rates than cisgender gay men, their stories are rarely told.1 The result is a narrative about HIV/AIDS that does not accurately reflect the history of the epidemic.
Jaime Cortez's Sexile helps fill the void of representation of transgender people during the AIDS epidemic. Cortez's graphic novel tells the story of Adela Vasquez, a Cuban transwoman who immigrated to the United...
