Dissident Bodies: Experiences and Challenges of Transvestite Women in the City of Cachoeiro de Itapemirim (ES) (2022-2024)
Name: LUCIENE CARLA CORRÊA FRANCELINO
Publication date: 09/04/2026
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| ALEX SILVA FERRARI | Examinador Interno |
| ÉRIKA OLIVEIRA AMORIM TANNUS CHEIM | Examinador Externo |
| LÍDIA MARIA VIANNA POSSAS | Examinador Externo |
| LIVIA DE AZEVEDO SILVEIRA RANGEL | Coorientador |
| MARIA BEATRIZ NADER | Presidente |
Pages
Summary: This thesis analyzes the experiences of transtravestis women in the municipality of Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, in the state of Espírito Santo, from the intersections of gender, race, and class. The study problematizes gender binarism as a normative structure that legitimizes only two identities as natural, sustained by heteronormativity and by compulsory processes of feminization and masculinization from birth. The research mobilizes concepts such as gender identity, cisgenderness, transtravestis corporeality, considering their historical, political, and social dimensions. Through Oral History, the central method of this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight transtravestis women residing in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, aged between 20 and 42, four Black and four white, between August 2023 and January 2024. The narratives were analyzed using the concepts of transphobia, racism, and intersectionality, aiming to understand how these social markers impact the construction of subjectivities and the life trajectories of the participants. The study examines the conservative context of the city and problematizes the historically constructed association between transtravestis women and the sex work market, often imposed as a potential horizon for these identities. It explores the spaces of nightlife — the street, the roadside, and Night as a symbolic atmosphere — as territories of circulation, sociability, and learning, where many of them, at some point in life, met their peers and acquired techniques of feminization. Although sex work is not practiced by the participants of this research, it is discussed as a structural dimension of these spaces and the stigmas that traverse their trajectories, analyzed from a labor perspective and, in certain contexts, also as emancipatory, without disregarding the multiple forms of violence it entails and the importance of the debate on its regulation. The research also shows how family and school often function as spaces of exclusion and control over dissident bodies. Finally, the thesis engages with feminist critiques of the notion of a universal woman, highlighting the contributions of Black feminism and transfeminism. It also analyzes the impact of material and symbolic vulnerability on the affective projects of these women, emphasizing, despite stigmas, the construction of support networks, relationships based on love and reciprocity, and the expansion of notions of family and belonging.
