QUESTION Guilherme Favaro, Sao Paulo, SP
1) TRANSGENDER
It is the individual who does not identify with the gender assigned at birth. In certain contexts, the word can be synonymous with transsexual or even encompass a number of other identities, such as non-binary (which is not exclusively male or female) and agender (without gender). Many transgender people seek medical and aesthetic procedures, such as sex reassignment surgery and hormone therapy, to adjust their bodies to their gender. But they can be considered transgender even before going through these processes. It is also common for them to adopt another name and fight to include it in their documents.
2) DRAG QUEEN
Are you an artist who uses clothing and elements such as wigs and makeup, often of the opposite gender, for entertainment purposes. It has nothing to do with gender identity or sexual orientation: anyone, gay, straight or bisexual, cis or transgender, can be a drag queen (or drag king, as women with male characters are called). The word comes from polari, a 19th century English dialect, which later came to be used by the LGBT community. There are those who say that «drag” is an acronym for “dressed as a girl”, supposedly present in old theater scripts, to guide the director of the play.
3) TRAVESTI
It is one of several possible identities within the transgender group. It is common to associate the term with the transsexual woman who did not undergo sexual reassignment surgery, but this is a misperception, since it is not the genitals that define gender. The decision to recognize oneself as a transvestite (or transsexual) is up to the person. The lack of opportunity and social marginalization of this group often make it associated with prostitution, although transvestites are increasingly present in the formal job market and in higher education.
In 2017, 445 LGBT Brazilians were murdered in the country – that is, one every 19 hours. It is an increase of 30% compared to 2016, when the statistic reached 343.
CONSULTANCY Bárbara Aires, consultant in sexuality and gender, Dimitri Sales, president of the Latin American Institute of Human Rights and member of the State Council for the Defense of the Rights of the Human Person of São Paulo, and Maria Lúcia Macedo Pereira, specialist in human sexuality from the Faculty of Medicine at USP
SOURCES G1, UOLSUPER INTERESTING, federal Senate, Bahia gay group