Transgender history in Brazil
Since Transgender Europe began recording data in 2008, Brazil has had the highest global annual rates of murders of trans people.
In the 16th century, Jesuit priests recorded encounters with indigenous transmasculine people who lived as men, took wives, and took offense at being called women.
[1] Xica Manicongo [pt], an African slave, was the first travesti recorded in Brazil;[4] she worked as a cobbler and in 1591 was charged by the Portuguese Inquisition for dressing as a woman and prostitution.
[2] The French Capuchin priest Yves d'Evreux [fr] provided an account of meeting a "hermaphrodite" (now referred to as Tibira do Maranhão) between 1613 and 1614 who was forced into hiding as the French "were looking for him and to his equals to kill them and to purify the land of their cruelties" in the name of the Catholic church; when caught they were taken to the Fort of São Luís, tied to a cannon, and shot in front of local indigenous leaders.
[1][3] In 1711, the first constitution of the Archbishop of Bahia established a punishment of a 100 cruzados fine and, arbitrarily dependent on the situation, banishment for "cross-dressing" as a woman.
[9] In the 1950s and 60s, gay bars started to open in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro and travestis gained more acceptance in the theater, having previously been relegated to Carnival and drag balls.
[9] In 1959, the magazine O Cruzeiro published a story about Mário da Silva, a trans man who at 18 years old received gender-affirming surgery in his home city of Itajaí.
[6] In 1963, the gay magazine O Snob [pt] discussed different contemporary gender identities in Rio, which included bichas, bofes, bonecas, and entendidos.
[10] The military repression started in the late 60s and reached its height in the 70s, mainly targeting suspected communists and LGBT people, the most recognizable of whom were travestis at the time.
[10] During the same period, Pajubá, a blend of Portuguese and West African languages spoken by practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions, became popular among travestis and expanded to include terms relevant to LGBT people to communicate covertly.
[10] In 1968, after the passage of Institutional Act Number Five, the minister of foreign affairs José de Magalhães Pinto formed a commission to investigate subversives suspected of being LGBT based on medical and psychiatric examinations and external complaints.
The surgery, performed at the Oswaldo Cruz hospital in São Paulo, was a success; However, Farina was charged by the State with bodily harm and sentenced to two years in prison.
From 1978 to 1979, Dr. Roberto Farina was acquitted of all criminal liability in a trial and subsequent appeal stemming from the first gender-affirming surgery performed in Brazil.
[17] In 1987, the president of the group Triângulo Rosa ('pink triangle'), João Antônio Mascarenhas [es; pt], appeared before the 1987 Constituent Assembly to say that associating with travestis would hurt the homosexual movement.
"[18] In the 1990s, the Higher Institute of Religious Studies (ISER; Instituto Superior de Estudos da Religião) developed a HIV/AIDS prevention project that distributed supplies to sex workers.
It distinguished itself for its pedagogical aims of attempting to educate the population, popularizing a medicalized understanding of transsexuality, and for maintaining a strong relationship with health services such as the Hospital das Clínicas of the State University of Campinas.
[15][20] They had a large impact on medical policy regarding transition[15][20] and in the same year gender-affirming surgeries stopped being considered a "crime of mutiliation" and began to be performed experimentally in some university hospitals according to Resolution 1482/97 of the Federal Council of Medicine.
[14] In 2011, João W. Nery expanded and republished his earlier autobiography as 'Solitary Journey: Memories of a transsexual thirty years later' (Viagem Solitária: Memórias de um transexual trinta anos depois), becoming a prominent activist for trans men.
It was short-lived and was eventually replaced by the Brazilian Institute of Transmasculinities (IBRAT; Instituto Brasileiro de Transmasculinidades), founded on June 13.
IBRAT helped organize the first National Meeting of Transgender Men (Encontro Nacional de Homens Trans) in March 2015.
[23] In 2018, the Group of Lawyers for Sexual Diversity (GADvS; Grupo de Advogados pela Diversidade Sexual) along with LGBT activists successfully argued in favor of new gender-identity recognition legislation;[18][24] The Supreme Federal Court (STF; Supremo Tribunal Federal) ruled that trans people can have identity cards and official documents consistent with their gender and name without medical, legal or judicial requirements.
[26] According to a report by Transgender Europe published in 2021, Brazil had the highest number of murders against trans and queer people worldwide for the 13th consecutive year; of the 375 murders recorded worldwide that year, 125 occurred in Brazil, although the report clarified that this figure may be an underestimate due to unreported cases and unrecorded deaths.
