Athena Vasquez is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Gender Studies program at UCLA. She is an interdisciplinary critical-creative Trans Studies scholar who is interested in the materialization of online anti-trans rhetoric and, most crucially, the ways in which trans Chicanas challenge and resist online anti-trans rhetoric. Athena holds a BA in English Creative Writing and a MFA in Creative Writing, Fiction from California State University, Long Beach.

A Los Angeles-based trans Chicana writer, Athena writes fiction, auto-fiction, creative nonfiction, and occasionally dabbles in poetry. Most often than not her identity as a trans Chicana woman influences the stories she writes. Her work can be found in various print and online magazines including Literally Stories, Edge of Humanity Magazine, Entre Magazine, and Los Angeles Blade.

Her novel Heart Me is forthcoming.