https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0931-9312
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ABSTRACT
The notes I share in this article are the result of research conducted within the framework of the Doctoral Program in Rule of Law and Global Governance at the University of Salamanca. This research, based on a queer theoretical-epistemological approach, seeks to analyse and bring together the Spanish and Brazilian legal overviews regarding the recognition of trans rights, in view of reconstructing policies that contemplate the demands of trans movements. The starting point for my research is a depathologising and human rights perspective. In the first part of this article, I present the content of my investigation as well as its delimitation, object and objectives. Then, I address the difficulties that arise when bringing a queer analysis closer to the study of legislation, case law and public policies – as well as the strategies that can be developed from that. Finally, I present a series of suggestions to queer the study of law; that is, how to combine research methods to encompass different objectives and favour a trans/disciplinary dialogue, as well as how to embrace existing contradictions in a critical legal investigation.
Acknowledgments
I thank Laís de Albuquerque Santana, Lena Holzer and Juliana de Carvalho for patiently reading this work and contributing to it.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Given that this would require a more in-depth analysis, I will not focus on it in this article.
2 The academy seems to be a key place where the idea of neutrality of research is produced as it is fundamental for legitimising academic research. This idea starts from the notion that the knowledge produced in the university may not be political in order to build a neutral space of scientific research. In the words of Patai and Koerte, it is as if the university was a protected area where ideas can be developed and discussed in a way that is perfectly unaffected by the outside world. See, Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, Professing feminism: Cautionary tales from the strange world of Women Studies (Basic Books 1994).
3 Angela Arruda, ‘Feminismo, gênero e representações sociais’ (2000) 8(1–2) Textos de História 117.
4 This would be a way of stopping the universalising epistemological production of determined subjects with camouflaged identities. Bear in mind Wiegman’s argument: ‘The university plays a primordial institutional role in the construction and protection [of the bourgeois subject – with its camouflaged identities of male, white, middle class]. This happens regardless of how much we can invest from pedagogy in a practice of critical thinking that wants to counteract the dominant political and economic formations. After all, it is the bourgeois subject who has been given licence for self-contemplation and critical thinking.’ Translated by the autor. See, Robyn Wiegman, ‘Desestabilizar la academia’ in Rafael M Mérida Jiménez (ed), Sexualidades transgresoras: Una antología de estudios queer (Icaria editorial 2002).
5 Camilla de Jesus Mello Gonçalves, Transexualidade e direitos humanos: O reconhecimento da identidade de gênero entre os direitos da personalidade (Juruá Editora 2014).
6 We can cite: in Spain, (a) Law 3/2007 [15 March 2007], regulating the registry rectification of the mention of the sex of persons; (b) Instruction [23 October 2018] from the Directorate General of Registries and Notaries, on change of name in the Civil Registry of transsexual persons and some case law on the subject; (c) Constitutional Court Case 99/2019 [July 18, 2019]; (d) Law 20/2011 [21 July 2011], on Civil Registry; (e) Law 2/2014 [8 July 2014], for non-discrimination on the grounds of gender identity and recognition of the rights of transgender persons in Andalusia; (f) Law 8/2016 [30 May 2016] to guarantee the rights of lesbian, gay, trans, bisexual and intersex people and to eradicate LGTBIphobia; etc. In Brazil, (a) Protocol N° 457/2008 [19 August 2008]; (b) Protocol N° 2.803/2013 [19 November 2013]; (c) Case ADO 26/DF, Supreme Court, judged on 13 June 2019; (d) Instruction N° 73/2018, from National Council of Justice, that regulates name and sex changes in the Civil Registry; (e) Decree N°. 8.727 [28 April 2016]; (f) Case ADI 4275/DF, Supreme Court, judged on 3 September 2018, etc.
7 Various critiques made by trans activists related to access of trans rights have been identified as consequences of the trans-pathologisation paradigm. See, Gerard Coll-Planas and Miquel Missé (eds), El género desordenado: críticas en torno a la patologización de la transexualidad (Egales 2016).
8 The problems examined in both contexts include the exclusion of certain trans people from changing their legal name and legal gender, difficulties regarding access to healthcare, the lack of patients’ active participation in body transformation processes (e.g. hormone therapy and surgeries), restrictions on the subjective agency and autonomy of trans persons, and the establishment of standardised treatments that do not encompass the persons’ individual self-image.
9 I chose to analyse these theorists, who are all white and from the Global North, since these theoretical-feminist formulations elaborated in a Western framework are the most referenced in my field of study (at least, until recently). Furthermore, they have established clear philosophical proposals and designs. The idea was to verify some problems elaborated by these theorists, to reject some formulations and to accept others. The main works I analysed were: Simone de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe (vol 1 and vol 2, Gallimard 1949); Gayle Rubin, ‘The Traffic in Women: Notes on the “Political Economy” of Sex’ in Rayna R Reiter (ed), Toward an Anthropology of Women (Monthly Review Press 1975) and ‘Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality’ in Richard Parker and Peter Aggleton (eds), Culture, Society and Sexuality: A Reader (Routledge 2006); Monique Wittig, La pensée straight (Amsterdam 2018); Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and Subversion of Identity (Routledge 1999) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (Routledge 2011).
10 Judith Butler, El género en disputa: El feminismo y la subversión de la identidad (María Antonia Muñoz tr, Paidós 2007) 73–85.
11 Judith Butler, Deshacer el género (Patricia Soley Beltrán tr, Paidós 2006) 136–48.
12 I am referring to: Michel Foucault, Herculine Barbin dite Alexina B. (Gallimard 1978); Histoire de la sexualité: La volonté de savoir (vol 1, Gallimard 1994); Histoire de la sexualité: L’usage des plaisirs (vol 2, Gallimard 1994) and Naissance de la clinique (PUF 2015).
13 Michel Foucault, História da sexualidade: a vontade de saber (Maria Thereza da Costa Albuquerque and J. A. Guilhon Albuquerque trs, vol 1, Paz & Terra 2015) 51–73.
14 Berenice Bento, A reinvenção do corpo: sexualidade e gênero na experiência transexual (EDUFRN 2014).
15 In order to dig deeper into the investigation on how traditional sciences appropriate sexualities by establishing criteria for ‘health’ and ‘abnormality’, I analysed relevant documents from the medical field, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the Standards of Care (SOC) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Starting from a critical reading of these documents, I also analysed how a diagnosis of transsexuality/gender dysphoria is produced and how these manuals interfere in the process. See, American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed, APA 1980), World Professional Association for Transgender Health, Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People. SOC-7 (WPATH 2012), Organización Mundial de la Salud, Clasificación Internacional de Enfermedades CIE-11 (OMS 2019).
16 A similar line of argumentation is followed by Mello Gonçalves. Although she does not employ the term ‘trans rights’ and defends legislative policies that restricts the definition of the rights holders in very concrete and inevitably excluding terms, she uses traditional notions of rights (e.g. human dignity) to defend that there is already a proper legal basis to support and postulate the demands of trans movements. See, Mello Gonçalves (n 5) 33–48 and 107–32.
17 Thus, the internal and specific legal instruments of each geographic context studied (Spain and Brazil) were analysed, such as laws, normative instructions, guidelines, administrative acts and protocols, and case law precedents.
18 The research subsequently became an article: Leonam Lucas Nogueira Cunha, ‘Relaciones laborales y el colectivo trans: una comparativa desde España y Brasil’ (2018) 44(192) Revista de Direito do Trabalho 283.
19 The problems I refer to include limited access to the formal labour market (especially for trans people that do not easily pass), discrimination, harassment, violence and dismissal experience at work, and precarious natures of jobs that trans persons often do. In addition, it has been observed that trans people who embody elements of a female identity are the ones who report the highest levels of discrimination experienced. It is worth noting that the two countries investigated show different levels of intensity of the discrimination endured. Brazil is the country where higher and more explicit levels of discrimination are reported. See, ibid 298–302.
20 Ministerio de Educación, Peru, La interculturalidad en la Educación (Working paper 2005).
21 Diego Falconí Trávez, Santiago Castellanos and María Amelia Viteri (eds), Resentir lo queer en América Latina: Diálogos desde/con el Sur (Editorial Egales 2013) 13.
22 Andrea Milena García Becerra and Miquel Missé, ‘Diálogo trans-cultural’ in Gerard Coll-Planas and Miquel Missé (ed), El género desordenado: críticas en torno a la patologización de la transexualidad (Egales 2016).
23 Trávez and others (n 21) 13.
24 Stuart Hall, ‘¿Cuándo fue lo postcolonial? Pensar al límite’ in Spivak, Mohanty, Shohat et al. (eds), Estudios Postcoloniales. Ensayos fundamentales (Traficante de Sueños 2008).
25 Diego Falconí Trávez, ‘La leyenda negra marica: Una crítica comparatista desde el Sur a la teoría queer hispana’ in Falconí Trávez, Castellanos and Viteri (n 21) 83.
26 Thanks for inspiring me, Paul B. Preciado. See, Paul B Preciado, Yo soy el monstruo que os habla: Informe para una academia de psicoanalistas (Editorial Anagrama 2020).
27 Ken Plummer, ‘Critical humanism and queer theory: Living with the tensions’ in Norman K Denzin and Yvonna S Lincoln (eds), The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues (Sage 2005) 371.
28 Seyla Benhabib, ‘El otro generalizado y el otro concreto: La controversia Kohlberg-Gilligan y la teoría feminista’ in Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla Cornella (eds), Teoría feminista y teoría crítica (Edicions Alfons el Magnànim 1990) 126–27.
29 See, Michael Warner (ed), Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory (University of Minnesota Press 1993); Sara Ahmed, Differences that Matter: Feminist Theory and Postmodernism (Cambridge University Press 1998); and Butler, El género en disputa (n 10).
30 See, Jacqueline Pitanguy, ‘A carta das mulheres brasileiras aos constituintes: Memórias para o futuro’ in Heloisa Buarque de Hollanda (org), Pensamento feminista brasileiro: Formação e contexto (Bazar do Tempo 2019) 81 (Translation by the author).
31 ibid (Translation by the author).
32 This issue does not arise solely in my research field. For example, Guacira Lopes Louro asks a similar question when taking a queer approach to education, questioning how can queer knowledge, intrinsically subversive and provocative, be articulated in traditionally normalising and disciplining fields such as Education. See, Guacira Lopes Louro, ‘Os estudos queer e a educação no Brasil: Articulações, tensões, resistências’ (2012) 2(2) Contemporánea 363, 364–65.
33 See, Marcelo Maciel Ramos, ‘Teorias Feministas e Teorias Queer do Direito: Gênero e sexualidade como categorias úteis para a crítica jurídica’ (2021) 12(3) Revista Direito & Práxis 1679 (Translation by the author).
34 In the Brazilian context, when discussing civil partnership between people of the same sex/gender, Rios says, ‘regarding the controversy over the appropriate legal form for these partnerships, [that] it is common and necessary to associate the recognition of dignity and rights entitled to those involved with the assimilation of their behaviour and personality to the traditional heterosexual family paradigm. This is what suggests, for example, the reading of case law precedents that grant rights under the argument that, apart from the equality of the sexes, the participants in the relationship reproduce the experience of heterosexual couples in everything – a position that easily leads to an assimilationist logic’. According to him, this leads to the difficulty of addressing some topics, such as prostitution, sadomasochism and pornography. Rios, moreover, criticises the term embraced and assumed as the most appropriate among the lively discussions: ‘homoaffectivity’. He explains: ‘Also, the formulation of expressions, however well-intentioned, such as “homoaffectiveness”, reveals a homonormative mentality. Conservative, insofar as it subordinates the principles of freedom, equality and non-discrimination, central to the development of sexual rights, to an assimilationist logic.’ See, Roger Raupp Rios, ‘Direitos sexuais: orientação sexual e identidade de gênero no direito brasileiro’ in Keila Deslandes (ed), Homotransfobia e direitos sexuais: Debates e embates contemporâneos (Autêntica 2018) 139–10 (Translation by the author).
35 In Spain, the Ley de Vagos y Maleantes (Law [5 August 1933], about dangerous states and security measures) and the Ley de Peligrosidad y Rehabilitación Social (Law 16/1970 [4 August 1970], about hazard and social rehabilitation) did not differentiate between trans people and homosexuals, and applied harsher sanctions to ‘male’ people who had sex with men. ‘Male cross-dressers’ were more exposed, especially in the prostitution and entertainment spaces they occupied (also prosecuted under these laws). Thus, trans women of that time were more persecuted. According to Platero, socially these people were seen as ‘too homosexual’; that’s why this greater persecution. See, Lucas Platero, ‘Transexualidad y agenda política: una historia de (dis)continuidades y patologización’ (2009) 46(1) Política y Sociedad 111. In Brazil, at the same time, there was a similar perception. There are accounts from LGBT community itself linking trans women of that time to theft and prostitution, calling them ‘very feminine homosexuals’ or ‘uncommon homosexuals’. See, Carrara and Carvalho, ‘Em direção a um futuro trans? Contribuição para a história do movimento de travestis e transexuais no Brasil’ (2013) 14(2) Revista Latinoamericana de Sexualidad, Salud y Sociedad 321, 321–22 and Cristina Câmara, Cidadania e Orientação Sexual: a trajetória do grupo Triângulo Rosa (Academia Avançada 2002) 57.
36 Jacqui True, ‘Introduction’ (2013) 9(1) Politics and Gender 95.
37 Michel Foucault, Vigiar e punir: História da Prisão (tr, Editora Vozes 2009) 185.
38 See, Manuel Sánchez-Moreno, ‘Apuntes para construir un método analítico desde el feminismo jurídico queer’ (2022) 7(1) Femeris 91 (Translation by the author).
39 Daniel Borillo, ‘Por una teoría queer del derecho de las personas y las familias’ (2011) 39 Direito, Estado e Sociedade 27, 31.
40 Kath Browne and Catherine J Nash, Queer Methods and Methodologies: Intersecting Queer Theories and Social Science Research (Ashgate Publishing 2010) 7.
41 Ali Erol and Lisa Cuklanz, ‘Queer Theory and Feminist Methods: A Review’ (2020) 11(2) Investigaciones feministas 211, 213.
42 Lucas Platero and Paco Guzmán, ‘Passing, enmascaramiento y estrategias identitarias: diversidades funcionales y sexualidades no-normativas’ in Lucas Platero (ed), Intersecciones: Cuerpos y sexualidades en la encrucijada. Temas contemporáneos (Edicions Bellaterra 2012) 126.
43 Erol and Cuklanz (n 41) 217.
44 Paul B Preciado, Manifiesto contrasexual (Editorial Anagrama 2011) 19–21.
45 See, María Lugones, ‘Colonialidad y género’ (2008) 9 Tabula Rasa 73, 95 (Translation by the autor).
46 Preciado (n 44) 19.
47 Marcelo Maciel Ramos holds in this regard that ‘[i]n an effort to locate the practices and objects associated with the term queer theory, we could say that they are crossed by markedly interdisciplinary approaches.’ See, Ramos (n 33) 1665 (Translation by the autor).
48 See, Simone de Beauvoir, El Segundo sexo: Los hechos y los mitos (Alicia Martorell tr, vol 1 Ediciones Cátedra 2015) 155–58.
49 See, bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (Routledge 2014) 15–50. And Angela Davis, Mulheres, raça e classe (Boitempo 2016) 103 and following pages. The last one is a Brazilian version of Davis’ Women, Race & Class (Random House 1974).
50 Ramos (n 33) 1697 (Translation by the author).
51 ibid.
52 Sánchez-Moreno (n 38) 91.
53 Alda Facio, Cuando el género suena, cambios trae: Una metodología para el análisis del fenómeno jurídico desde la perspectiva de género (ILANUD 1993).
54 Daniel García López, ‘¿Teoría jurídica queer? Materiales para una lectura queer del derecho’ (2016) 32 Anuario de Filosofía del Derecho 323, (Translated by the author).
55 Ibid, 341, (Translated by the author).
56 Francisco Valdés, ‘Queers, Sissies, Dykes, and Tomboys: Desconstructing the Conflation of “Sex”, “Gender”, and “Sexual Orientation” in Euro-American Law and Society’ (1995) 83 California Law Review 366. Cited by Ramos (n 33).
57 Jean-François Lyotard holds in this regard that ‘[i]f teaching is to ensure not only the reproduction of skills, but their progress, it would therefore be necessary for the transmission of knowledge not to be limited to information, but to involve the learning of all the procedures capable of improving the ability of connecting fields that the traditional organisation of knowledge jealously isolates. The key word of interdisciplinarity, spread after the crisis of 1968, but proclaimed well before, seems to go in that direction’. Jean-François Lyotard, La condición posmoderna: Informe sobre el saber (tr Ediciones Cátedra 1987) 41 (Translation by the author).
58 Browne and Nash (n 40) 5.
59 Jacqueline Gomes de Jesus uses the term sub-citizenship to refer to the formation of the Brazilian peripheral modernity that, besides marginalising, requires subjects to be ‘profitable’, ‘producers’. I extend this peripheral formation to include trans people as well. See, Jacqueline Gomes de Jesus, ‘Ser cidadão ou escravo: Repercussões psicossociais da cidadania’ (2012) 2(1) Crítica e Sociedade 42.
60 Marjorie L DeVault, ‘Talking and Listening from Women’s Standpoint: Feminist Strategies for Interviewing and Analysis’ (1990) 37(1) Social Problems 96.
61 With the data produced in my research, it was possible to discuss theories about the construction/deconstruction of identities, recalling Susan Stryker’s words that not only trans people have constructed identities, but also cis people, as we all are made of seams and sutures. See, Susan Stryker, ‘Mis palabras a Victor Frankenstein sobre el pueblo de Chamoniz: performando la ira transgénero’ in Pol Galofre and Miquel Missé (eds), Políticas trans: Una antología de textos desde los estudios trans norteamericanos (Editorial Egales 2015) 102.
62 Following Richards’ recommendations, the interviews were carried out in the last stage of the research, when I had gathered enough information to start the process of elaborating the questions and carrying out the qualitative analysis. See, David Richards, ‘Elite Interviewing: Approaches and Pitfalls’ (1996) 16(3) Politics 201.
63 The reason why I chose to interview only ten trans-activists is simple: first, because conducting interviews is not the only method employed, as I mentioned before; secondly, because I encountered limitations in space and time in my research.
64 Alice Yeo and others, ‘In-depth interviews’ in Jane Ritchie and others (ed), Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers (Sage Publications 2013) 191.
65 Queer does not have a script, but it makes indications of possibilities through which to succeed.
66 Riessman addresses the difficulties faced in this debate in Catherine Kohler Riessman, ‘When Gender is Not Enough: Women Interviewing Women’ (1987) 1 Gender and Society 172.
67 See, Annamarie Jagose, ‘Feminism’s Queer Theory’ (2009) 19(2) Feminism and Psychology 157.
68 Raewyn Connell, Gênero em termos reais (tr nVersos 2016) 116 (Translation by the author).
69 Raewyn Connell, ‘Lives of the Businessmen. Reflections on Life-history Method and Contemporary Hegemonic Masculinity’ (2010) 35 Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie 55.
70 Ibid 67.
71 N.B. indicates that the interviewee is a non-binary person (No Binarie).
72 Interview 4 with N.B.1 (Spain), recorded on June 21, 2021. 1h02min.
73 M.T.T. indicates that the interviewee is a travesti-trans woman (Mujer Trans-Travesti).
74 ‘Travesti’ is a Latin-American gender identity. In Brazil, travesties compose an auto-declared community that experiences a feminine identity and has a feminine gender expression, but they don’t define themselves as ‘women’. In other words, they are people who were categorised as ‘men’ at birth but refute this identity and implement a feminine performativity without needing to label themselves as women. It is a proper auto-declared community in terms of gender that defines itself as ‘travesti’, which does not mean ‘transvestite’ nor ‘transgender’, but is a specific trans identity constructed far away from western definitions. See, Leonam Lucas Nogueira Cunha, Lucas Isaac Soares Mesquita and Jules Ponthieu, ‘Sex, Money and Modern Slavery: Trafficking of Travestis and Trans Women from Brazil to Europe for Sexual Exploitation’ (2022) 3(117) Ameryka Łacińska 78–80.
75 Interview 6 with M.T.T.1 (Brazil), recorded on 12 July 2021. 1h29min.
76 H.T. indicates that the interviewee is a trans man (Hombre Trans).
77 Interview 8 with H.T.2 (Brazil), recorded on 24 July 2021. 1h12min.
78 M.T. indicates that the interviewee is a trans woman (Mujer Trans).
79 Interview 3 with M.T.2 (Spain), recorded on 11 June 2021. 59min.
80 David Córdoba, Javier Sáez and Paco Vidarte, Teoría queer: Políticas bolleras, maricas, trans, mestizas (Editorial Egales 2009). 77 and following pages.
81 Joshua Gamson argues in this regard that ‘[q]ueer practices shake the foundations on which gay and lesbian identity politics have been built, dissolving the concepts of “sexual minority” and “gay community”, “gay” and “lesbian”, and even “man” and “woman”. These practices are based on the fundamental struggle of organising around identity: the instability of identities, both individual and collective, is their artificial but necessary feature’. Joshua Gamson, ‘¿Deben autodestruirse los movimientos identitarios? Un extraño dilema’ in Rafael M Mérida Jiménez (ed), Sexualidades transgresoras: Una antología de estudios queer (Icaria editorial 2002) 141–42 (Translated by the autor).
82 Diane Richardson, Janice McLaughlin and Mark E Casey (ed), Intersections between Feminist and Queer Theory (Palgrave Macmillan 2006) 16–18.
83 Gamson (n 81) 142. On page 165 of the same article, Gamson says that there is a factor generally ignored by the social movement theory, namely, that ‘secure boundaries and stable identities are not necessary generally, but specifically’. This means that they are not necessarily fundamental for each human being to have a fully accomplishable life. Instead, they serve to substantiate certain fights.
84 On this note, Gracia Trujillo states that ‘[q]ueer groups share a series of elements among themselves, such as (…) the idea that the priority issue is not the demand for rights and the strategy to follow institutional negotiation, but the cultural battle that takes place in the street. They are groups of assembly organisation, self-managed, critical of the multiple differences (…) and of the mainstream LGTBI+ movement, institutionalised and focused, in general terms, on legal advances. In the case of the Spanish State, obtaining rights such as “same-sex” marriage or adoption by LGTBI+ people has allowed people who wanted to enjoy them to do so (and their partners and families have legal support). At the same time, it has meant a significant demobilisation of the moderate LGTBI+ movement.’ Translated by the author. See, Gracia Trujillo, El feminismo queer es para todo el mundo (Catarata 2022) 38.
85 Grietje Baars, ‘Queer cases unmake gender law, or, Fucking Law’s Gendering Function’ (2019) 45(1) The Australian Feminist Law Journal 21.
86 Sandra Harding, ‘Is there a Feminist Method?’ in Sandra Harding (ed), Feminism and Methodology (Indiana University Press 1987).
87 Harding (n 86).
88 We can observe this through Interviews 6 (M.T.T.1, travesti-trans woman), 7 (T.1, travesti), 8 (H.T.2, trans man) and 10 (T.2, travesti).
89 Mello Gonçalves (n 5) 43.
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Leonam Lucas Nogueira Cunha
Leonam Lucas Nogueira Cunha holds a PhD in Rule of Law and Global Governance and a Master in Gender Studies from the University of Salamanca, as well as a Bachelor of Laws from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil).