Paper short abstract:

Drawing from Brazilian “travesti” sex workers’ experiences, this paper aims to reflect on broader processes of transphobia in the country and, at the same time, rethink the way queer theory considers every unintelligible body as “transgressor”.

Paper long abstract:

Queer theory usually considers that people with bodies which are unintelligible according to the sex-gender dichotomy system are "transgressors", as they question heteronormative social identities. As I will describe when referring to Brazilian "travesti" sex workers, I understand that these bodies, without a political will of transgression, are not transgressors themselves.

Affirming that they are not/do not feel like transgressors does not mean thinking that they are passive individuals. On the contrary, they are agents who strategically combine acting and embodying a kind of femininity with the desire to claim the sexual pleasure of being penetrated, and at the same time penetrating with their penises. "Travestis", who are not cross-dressers nor transsexuals, repeatedly declare that they are seeked out and desired due to their "masculine" role. However, their penises mean that for Brazilian society in general their bodies are not understood as ambiguous but as abject, because these bodies belong to "viados" ("fags"). Transphobia in Brazil is founded precisely through the consideration that the infractions that these "men" incur when making their bodies feminine and desiring other men, must be punished.

In short, whatever the level of "reaction" to their bodies, and even though there is not a political will of transgression on the part of "travestis", it can be affirmed that their bodies interpellate and are not indifferent as they mobilize the male/female dichotomy very well established in a patriarchal society as the Brazilian one.