I apply Gloria Anzaldúa’s “borderlands theory” to Jamie Cortez’s Sexile, an HIV/AIDS prevention publication created as a first-person narrative of the journey of queer, trans activist Adela Vasquez who fled to the US from Cuba in 1980. I argue that Sexile is a borderlands text and operationalizes Anzaldúa’s mestiza consciousness at various levels— ranging from the essence of the text and what its existence represents to the literary techniques used in the telling of Adela’s narrative. In the first half of this paper, I explore Anzaldúa’s borderlands theory and the ethos of Sexile as a text, including Vázquez’s story as inherently a borderland narrative; as a product of democratized knowledge; the praxis of the text’s creation; and the technology of the graphic novel. Throughout the second half, I look more closely at the content of the text using close reading to explore notions of the “borderland” represented throughout Adela’s narrative. Through both its content and the praxis of creation, Sexile represents the power of graphic medicine in illustrating the nuances of narratives at the interstices of marginalized identities and captures the multitudes and ambiguities of trauma, loss, rebirth, kinship, and joy at the margins.

我将 Gloria Anzaldúa 的“无主之地理论”应用于 Jamie Cortez 的 Sexile，这是一本 HIV/AIDS 预防出版物，它以第一人称叙述了 1980 年从古巴逃到美国的酷儿、跨性别活动家 Adela Vasquez 的旅程。我认为，  Sexile 是一个边疆文本，并在各个层面上操作了 Anzaldúa的混血 意识——从文本的本质及其存在所代表的内容，到讲述阿德拉叙事时使用的文学技巧。在本文的前半部分，我探讨了 Anzaldúa 的边疆理论和 Sexile的精神 作为文本，包括巴斯克斯的故事，本质上是一种边疆叙事；作为民主化知识的产物；文本创作的实践；和图画小说的技术。在整个下半场，我通过仔细阅读更仔细地研究文本的内容，以探索贯穿阿德拉叙事的“边界”概念。通过其内容和创作实践，  Sexile 代表了图解医学的力量，在边缘化身份的间隙中说明叙事的细微差别，并在边缘捕捉到创伤、失去、重生、亲属关系和欢乐的众多和模糊性。