Ser travesti: significados atribuídos por um grupo de travestis da cidade de Manaus

Abstract

This study investigates the meanings of travestility from a group of transvestites in the city of Manaus, from the perspective of Historical-Cultural Psychology that was proposed by Vygotsky. From this approach, it points out that this research was crossed by social, historical and cultural dimensions in their apprehension processes of meanings presented in the context. It is aimed at understanding the meanings of travestility from a group of transvestites in the city of Manaus. The specific objectives, points out the conceptual constructions about the ways of life of the studied transvestites and where they live in the socio-cultural context, what the main difficulties in developmental trajectories of transvestites are, investigate the meanings attributed to travestility by the respondents and identify the areas where transvestites socialize and are a part of. The methodology chosen was qualitative research, using a semi-structured interview. The data collected were transcribed and then subjected to analysis of the core meaning. The results from the speeches of the transvestites indicate that they are crossed with present concepts in western culture, some emerging nuclei, such as the local culture, the strength of the biological, the hegemonic femininity and the relationship with social institutions. The difficulties involve various levels: interpersonal relationships, education, work and access to the bathroom. As the meanings of travestility appeared as a core, transvestite as the expression of fluidity and gender stereotypes, referencing transvestite through adjectives, there are also synonymous like being female, being in metamorphosis versus being stereotyped, good and bad transvestite, as heteronormativity developments. The sociability areas have a nucleus: transvestite's place is in the world: dialectics of exclusion / inclusion. The results of this study allows us to critically reflect on the meanings related to transvestite in Manaus, indicating that the socio-cultural context of the city of Manaus participates dialectically in the way they mean "transvestite" in this context, their difficulties and what their areas of sociability are. We hope, from the findings of this study, that their way of life may be thought about and redefined, in the way that they collaborated in the understanding of their strategies to continue their process of development as transvestites, their difficulties in development, as well as those places where their participation is still denied, as they may be indicators of barriers that need the fostering of public policies, participation of social movements and academia to build a more egalitarian society. The findings of this study indicate existing meanings in the collective level about the transvestite, and it results in reflecting on the subjective elaborations they elaborate on in their experiences. It is possible to infer that there is a power in the social environment that ends up positing naturalized forms of development and existence that are linked to a primarily biological perspective. These are represented in the media, which end up legitimizing certain truths and influencing greatly in their processes of meanings about what is to be transvestite. It is then constructed as fragmented and therefore reinforces what we might call "dialectic of exclusion".