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Trangender,
transsexual e travesties in Brazil
Berenice
Alves de Melo Bento
Departamento
de Sociologia da UnB
Universidade de Brasília - Campus Universitário - ICC
Centro - Asa Norte
Brasília,
Brasil
In recent years, we have begun to
hear the term transgender to designate gendered
experiences that break away with binary understandings.
Transgender signifies a politicization of identities by
subjects rejecting other categories (transsexual, travesti)
as the products of medical power-knowledge regimes that
seek to normalize sexualities and gender.
On the other hand, the debates on
how to identify and to name experiences of gender
constructed in tense negotiations with dominant norms are
far from reaching a consensus in Brazil. Drawing on
personal narratives, this presentation seeks to trace and
problematize the category “transgender” and its points
of convergence and difference from transsexual and
travesti identities.
Keywords:
trangender, transsexuality, travesti, gender construction,
identity.
About
Berenice Alves de Melo Bento
Graduated
in Social Sciences (1994), Master in Sociology (1998),
Doctorate in Sociology (Brazil-Spain, 2003). First
Secretary of the Brazilian Association of Homoculture
Studies. Her topics of interests and research include
sexuality/body with emphasis on Human Rights,
transexuality, trangender, gender/queer studies.
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