During the 2000s, various minoritized groups in Brazil achieved unprecedented levels of self-representation and political visibility, attracting increasing attention from mainstream society. Nevertheless, legal recognition of transgender identities remains constrained. In Brazil, transgender individuals can only obtain official recognition of their gender identity upon reaching the age of 18. Moreover, despite the diversity of transgender experiences and identities present in everyday life, state institutions and public policies continue to rely largely on the concept of transsexuality. This framework, inherited from the previous century, tends to define a legitimate transgender person as someone who has undergone–or intends to undergo–some form of bodily modification. Some contemporary works in Brazilian teatra address these issues and the challenges faced by transgender people in everyday life.
Ofélia, a travesti gorda (Ophelia, the fat transsexual, 2018) presents a transgender reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s Ophelia. Through the protagonist’s journey, the play explores how a sense of belonging and self-recognition emerges for a transgender person within a society structured by exclusionary norms. Fat trans individuals experience a form of double marginalization, confronting both cisnormative expectations and dominant ideals of thinness. In this context, the play challenges conventional assumptions about who is entitled to embody certain identities and roles. A thin cisgender boy, for instance, is portrayed as fundamentally unsuited to the role of Ophelia–not only within the fictional universe of the play but also in relation to its broader social commentary. The work advances a radical critique of cisnormativity, framing it as a mechanism of coloniality that regulates bodies, identities, and social belonging. Through a narrative of self-discovery, the dramaturgy traces the social construction of gender while drawing explicit connections between the protagonist’s gender transition and the pressures imposed by beauty standards that privilege thinness.
Another example is As 3 uiaras de SP City, a play written by trans playwright Ave Terrena Alves and performed by trans actresses Verónica Valenttino and Danna Lisboa. The work stages the struggle for civil rights by proposing a reinterpretation of the past through the lens of issues that continue to affect trans people in contemporary Brazil. Alves suggests that historical forms of exclusion and violence persist in the present, and that meaningful social transformation depends on confronting these enduring legacies. In doing so, As 3 uiaras exposes the racist social structures that sustain the oppressive logic of transphobia, revealing what may be understood as an ethno-cis-centric order. This configuration can be seen as a direct consequence of the colonial foundations of cisnormativity.
The play also invites reflection on the relationship of Christianity and colonialism in Brazil, highlighting how Christian institutions and discourses have historically functioned as mechanisms of domination and social control. This critique is not unique to Alves’s work; the impact of Christian colonialism on Brazilian society has become a recurring theme in the artistic production of prominent Afro-Brazilian trans artists, including Ventura Profana, Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro, Alice Guél, and Linn da Quebrada. Through their diverse practices, these artists examine the intersections of race, gender, religion, and coloniality, contributing to broader critiques of normative structures in Brazilian societies.
This according to “Gender in danger: Transdanger people in performing arts in Brazil” by Dodi T.B. Leal (Theatre research international 46/3 [2021] 398–406; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2021-12171).
The first image in the post is of the singer and actor Danna Lisboa, performing in As 3 uiaras de SP City. Photo courtesy of Renato Mangolin.
Related Bibliolore posts:
https://bibliolore.org/2021/12/23/queer-musicology-an-annotated-bibliography/
https://bibliolore.org/2024/05/07/laura-jane-grace-sings-the-gender-dysphoria-blues/
https://bibliolore.org/2017/07/03/the-dancing-queens-of-mumbai/
“It’s about a woman trying to get through a concert performance, which I know something about, and she’s doing it at a time when her liver was pickled and she was still doing heroin regularly.”
