Política é vida : ativismo e política de saúde trans em Manaus (AM).

Abstract

This thesis addresses the access to health of trans people (transvestites, transgender women, and transgender men) as a concomitant process to their constitution as political subjects. It consists of a comprehensive study on the repertoire of political action mobilized in the construction of public health policies for transvestites and transsexuals in Manaus, State of Amazonas. The empirical ethnographic research that supports this study combined participant observation, in the multiple spaces where these policies are constructed, with interviews with members of two transgender organizations in Manaus during the period in which the fieldwork was carried out, between January 2016 and July 2018: ASSOTRAM Association of Transvestites, Transsexuals and Transgenders of Amazonas, managed by transvestites and transgender women, and the collective O Gênero , led by transgender men. Through biographical narratives, recorded during the study period, I sought to understand the variety of engagement itineraries of the activists involved in the development of public policies. These trajectories indicate how the language of the law currently permeates the demands of access to the health of transgender people, in addition to demonstrating a constant search for health as a structuring script for the transition between genders. Life narratives, as a retrospective construction, are intertwined with itineraries of activism and with the organization of the movement. The later plays a role in the construction of transgender health policy and the struggle for the recognition of transgender identities in Manaus. As ideal types, four modes of political action were mobilized in this struggle, which were classified, using native categories, as follows: confrontation; articulation; visibility; and collaboration, with the society of Manaus as the public and the agents of the municipal and state Judiciary, Legislative, and Executive bodies sometimes as adversaries, sometimes as allies.