Queer Writer Kim Guerra is Helping Latinas Heal & Embrace Their Inner Guerrera

Kim Guerra’s last name means war and she’s living up to it by taking up arms by way of her words in a fight against the toxic beliefs and behaviors passed down for generations. She’s developed a reputation as a Latina powerhouse through her brand Badass Bonita selling clothing and accessories featuring empowering affirmations and poems. She then ventured into publishing in 2019 with Mija and later Mariposa, collections of empowering bilingual poems and affirmations, and now she’s combining her creative writing with the knowledge she’s attained through her work as a therapist. She’s empowering mujeres by reminding us that we too are guerreras through her latest publication, a guide book entitled Badass Bonita: Break the Silence, Become a Revolution, Unearth Your Inner Guerrera published in September of 2024. Guerra, who earned her Master’s in marriage and family therapy from Antioch University Seattle, writes about breaking cycles of trauma and embracing the changes Latinas need to make to heal. The book is divided into four parts: The Caterpillar, The Chrysalis, The Breakthrough, and Using Your Wings, inspired by the four stages of a butterfly’s metamorphosis. “This way of seeing the healing and self love process has helped me in my own journey and in my work with my clients,” Guerra tells HipLatina. “I do my best not to land on a precise definition for self love, because I believe each person gets to define what loving themselves looks, feels, and simply is like. I provide tools and gently guide my readers towards ways to love themselves better.”

In the book, she writes “May we dress ourselves with shameless, revolutionary love” and that mission she has for her readers started with her own journey in revolutionary love. The transformative journey of each chapter follows Guerra’s own transformation which starts with her detailing her difficult relationship with her mother to the sexual abuse she endured in her childhood as well as her divorce and her experience coming out as queer. She considers the breakthrough the most essential of the four parts as it allows us to “become the badass, beautiful version of ourselves.”

She advocates not just for readers to find their wings but to find their voice in order to silence the negativity we may have heard growing up. Latinas are often told “calladita te vez mas bonita” – an adage that has long informed the traditional expectations set on Latinas. From being quiet and complacent to being obedient and devoted to family, the expectations placed on Latinas can often feel like a cage and Guerra is detailing how to break free.

“Many of us all told who and how we should be. We aren’t raised to choose, know, and love who we are. Getting to know myself, estudiándome, y eligiendo amarme tal como soy allowed me to have agency over who I am and how I want to be in this world. Choosing to be my own type of mujer, my own type of beautiful, and to write my own story. Esto me libero because it was then when I stopped trying to be and live according to others’ expectations. I started living for myself” she tells us.

She tackles heavy and difficult topics like homophobia, racism, and machismo and balances it with reflexiones — questions that allow the reader to work through the subject matter in each section. Asking questions like “how are you developing healthy and loving relationships in your life? Include the relationship with yourself” and “What is your definition of love? What does love feel like to you?” All in an effort to work through the negativity and shame that often keeps us from believing we are worthy of love.

The one through line in her framework for what being a “badass bonita” entails is revolutionary acts of self-love in the fight for liberation. That includes subscribing to the “F*ck Being Calladita” lifestyle which she tells HipLatina is “about embracing yourself, your voice, and your value. It is an intentional choice to stop being calladita, stop silencing yourself, and stop shrinking. It invites you to live your life unapologetically, loudly, and on your own terms.”

The first chapter of “The Breakthrough” she asks “Who the f*ck are you?” where she encourages readers to continually ask themselves who am I and what do I want and it’s all rooted in self-love. She writes in the affirmations section: “It’s never too late to heal”, a simple yet crucial affirmation that reminds readers that no matter where they are in life, healing can happen. Guerra hopes readers learn to speak words of love to themselves, reinforcing the importance of affirmations and why she was intentional about including them throughout the book: “Affirmations keep your becoming at the forefront of your mind. These affirmations are you co-creating with the universe and connecting with your essence. They are the pathway to your becoming.”

These affirmations chip away at the the beliefs, rooted in marianismo (as she calls it the “bible for femininity”), that have been forced on Latinas from a young age. Part of the reason inner child work is so fundamental is because of the impact these beliefs have had on Latinas for generations. But Guerra reminds readers that we need to be writing our own stories and rules instead of following those that are set before us.

“We have such heavy, stark, and rigid expectations placed on us from such an early age. We don’t need a bible for femininity telling us who and how to be,” she tells us.

Part of her journey in nurturing her inner niña includes embracing her queer identity after her marriage to a man came to an end, while grappling with homophobia in her family. Guerra, who founded the cultural center Casita Queer in Oaxaca City, is a vocal LGBTQIA leader in the community but details in the book the difficult conversations she had with family members who judged her as a lesbian. She’s now found her voice as a proud lesbian helping other queer folks feel safe and seen through her work and credits two of the most iconic queer Latinas for helping her and many other feel seen. Lesbian singer Chavela Vargas who had an affair with famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was unabashedly open about her queerness and relationship with Kahlo despite the stigma. This rebellious act gave queer women “wings” Guerra writes, calling it the “Mariposa Effect”, the act of giving yourself wings and inspiring other mujeres to do the same. Guerra tells us that the chapter on the Mariposa Effect was the easiest for her to write and, as the closing chapter for the book, she “felt like lighting a torch and passing it on. I hope readers take the torch and fill the sky with their wings.”