Scars are high-relief documents: Narratives about human rights of she-males in prison jails in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

This article is one of the outcomes of a research project that followed, from 2013 to 2018, the everyday life of a group of gays, bisexuals, travesti and transwomen in a prison institution at Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, and analyzed elements of their narratives in light of the notion of precariousness, by Judith Butler. Our interest here focuses on what we call the visceral narrative of a life, which speaks of suffering that implies bodily marks and abuses committed particularly on travesti’s bodies, and a narrative that is made by quoting the suffering experiences and fragments of a shared history, even if lived in different times. We take the body and its scars as a historical document, which inserts she-males in a long-term chronology and in a collective that is recognized by their shared suffering situation. The lives we dwell on have only had the opportunity
to disclose their story because the eyes of power have captured them. The strategy of citing, repeatedly and collectively, the recurring existence of these sufferings and the memory of those who perished during incarceration produced an enunciative materiality, which we focus on. The social movement that created the
specific wing for she-males and transsexuals – as well as gay and bisexual people – in the prison institution produced lives not perceived as viable, and sometimes not even perceived as lives, being in the category of precarious lives, in need of care. The political process that we analyzed dialogues with the field of human rights.