Intersectional Conversion as Intellectual Refusal

Sor Juana's forced renunciation of intellectual life under pressure from the Archbishop was a form of conversion—a demand that she deny her primary commitment to knowledge and recenter submission. Intersectional conversion as intellectual refusal names the ways systems attempt to coerce marginalized people to abandon core aspects of self in exchange for limited belonging. This happens through subtle conversions: the LGBTQ+ person pressured to heterosexuality, the immigrant pressured to abandon language, the disabled person pressured to hide disability, the Black scholar pressured to center whiteness. The practice involves recognizing these conversion demands and refusing them—not only as individual acts but as collective commitments. It means creating spaces where people need not convert to be safe, valued, or belong. It honors Sor Juana's defiance while learning from her eventual capitulation, understanding both as responses to impossible pressure and insisting intersectionality must reduce the conditions requiring such terrible choices.