Daniela Valdes is a doctoral candidate studying modern United States history. Her dissertation explores the history of gender nonconformity in the 20th and 21st century. Her article “In the Shadow of the Health-Care City: Historicizing Trans Latinx Immigrant Experiences during the Coronavirus Pandemic” won the Antonia Castañeda Prize for best article on women’s Latina and Indigenous history from the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies. Previously, she was awarded the Du Bois-Wells Graduate Student Paper Prize from the African American Intellectual History Society for her research on race, trans identity, and prisoner organizing.
Daniela also researches detransition through a public health lens. See her co-authored op-ed with Dr. Kinnon MacKinnon, “Take Detransitioners Seriously,” The Atlantic, January 18, 2023
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/detransition-transgender-nonbinary-gender-affirming-care/672745/
In addition to her scholarship, Daniela frequently collaborates with public history projects. In 2022, she co-directed the documentary "Story by Story: Building a People's History of Rikers Island," which can be viewed here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Qzz1rSwLIng&feature=youtu.be
See her other writing: "'A whole race called me faggot': Reflections on Race and Class in Trans Oral History Research," August 26, 2022.
https://lgbtqdigitalcollaboratory.org/a-whole-race-called-me-faggot/
