Gender, Sexuality and AIDS Prevention in Brazil

As in many parts of the world, AIDS first arrived
in Brazil in the early 1980s through sensational-
istic media coverage of a mysteri-
ous North American “gay plague” or “gay moting safer
cancer.” In 1983, Markito, a renowned for “men who h, fashion designer whose homosexuality sex with me
was common knowledge, became the first
Brazilian public figure to die from HIV-related illness, bolstering the connection between AIDS and homosex-
uality in the Brazilian popular imagination. Soon there-
after, the seemingly neutral epidemiological term “risk
group” assumed increasing importance in public dis-
course, with “bisexual” men, prostitutes, intravenous
drug users, transfusion recipients, and anyone seen as
“promiscuous” gradually joining “homosexuals” as
members of a more general category of those at risk of
infection and transmission of the virus.
Within this context of a rapidly spreading, sexualized
and stigmatizing epidemic, the first Brazilian AIDS-
related nongovernmental organizations (AIDS NGOs)
emerged in the mid-1980s. Like their counterparts in
North America and other parts of the world, these pio-
neering groups quickly developed a wide range of activ-
ities to raise AIDS awareness, counter media misinfor-
mation and mobilize civil society in response to the
epidemic. And since government health officials did not
initially produce HIV/AIDS-related educational materi-
als or implement coordinated AIDS awareness cam-
paigns, NGOs became the most important AIDS educa-
tors in Brazil. As international funding became
increasingly available to local groups, the NGO model
Charles Klein is visiting professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh. His dissertation, AIDS, Activism and the Social Imagination in Brazil, received the Horace R. Rackham
Distinguished Dissertation Award.
PM
of AIDS activism and AIDS prevention grew quickly, and by 1994 there were more than 500 AIDS NGOs throughout the country. This incipient organizing around the issue of AIDS has been a crucial catalyst to gay activism in Brazil. Work groups and other activities originally developed by AIDS organizations to promote AIDS prevention have emerged as important sites for ongoing discussion and debate on a wide range of issues, ranging from sex- ual identity and violence to the various ways in which HIV and AIDS relate to gender and sexual hierarchies in Brazil. These experiences have made it quite clear that AIDS prevention is not solely about behavior modifica- tion, but is also a project that requires a critical under- standing of-and perhaps substantial changes within- Brazilian sexuality and sexual politics. Over the years, most Brazilian AIDS activists have been united by a belief that frank, accessi- ble and sex-positive information about HIV transmission (as opposed to promoting abstinence) is
one of the best ways to reduce the spread of HIV. There
is also a generalized political discourse that emphasizes
gender/sexual equality and working against sexual dou-
ble standards and homophobia. There has been consid-
erably less agreement, however, as to how HIV preven-
VOL XXXI, No 4 JAN/FEB 1998 27REPORT ON SEXUAL POLITICS
tion programs might best address specific questions
around gender and sexuality. In the late 1980s and early
1990s, most educational materials were directed toward
the general population. But sometime after 1992, par-
tially in response to the shifting priorities of interna-
tional funders, many organizations began to target pro-
grams toward specific social groups such as women,
transgendered persons, and gay and bisexual men.
Another tension among Brazilian AIDS educators and
activists has centered around how to develop sex-positive,
HIV risk-reduction campaigns while simultaneously
promoting equality and sexual self-determination for
women and sexual minorities, given that Brazilian ero-
tic culture embodies-and, in fact, eroticizes-gender
and sexual inequalities. In order to understand how
Brazilian AIDS NGOs have responded to such chal-
lenges, and to assess the at times ambiva-
Tra
lent, if not equivocal, sexual politics of prostitute
their HIV prevention programs, it is neces- Rio de Jani
sary to step back and consider in more
detail some of the general characteristics of Brazilian
erotic culture.
Anthropologist Richard Parker has described at
least three coexisting and often contradictory systems
of sexuality operating within Brazil, which may or
may not be operating in any particular situation.’
According to the active/male versus passive/female
model common to Mediterranean cultures, men who
assume the “active” or penetrating role in intercourse
with other men are not considered to be homosexual,
whereas their “passive” partners are, and as such are
more or less placed in the symbolic domain of women.
In a second system, scientific categories define sexual-
ity in terms of the biological sex of the partner-hetero-
sexual, homosexual or bisexual. The third system is
derived from North American ideas of identity-based
sexuality-homosexual, gay and now, queer.
Holding together these distinct conceptual subsystems
are ideas of transgression and sacanagem, roughly
translated as the thrill of doing what you are not sup-
posed to and getting away with it. While sacanagem
plays a critical role in organizing Brazilian sexuality, it
is not a gender-neutral concept, as Donna Goldstein has
argued, and is strongly linked to the role that Brazilian
women play as “boundary setters” who lay down the
rules which men then try to break. 2 That is to say, in
order for there to be “bad,” desirable women who “do it
all,” there need to be “good” wives who do not. Such
distinctions, whatever their erotic values, involve a
series of social and moral evaluations on the proper
roles of different types of women and men in society. In
this play of eroticized rule breaking, erotic “transgres-
sions” and sacanagems may in fact reinforce existing
social roles and the hierarchies they support, rather than
threaten the underlying gender and sexual power rela-
tions that structure everyday life.
This description of differing female and male concep-
tions and practices of sexuality was evident in my year-
long study of a low-income community in Porto Alegre,
which I will call Vila Santos. Like many vilas in Porto
Alegre, Vila Santos consists of self-built housing on ille-
gally occupied land and is characterized by low levels of
infrastructure (in 1994, there was only one paved street
in a community of more than 5,000 people which itself
was part of a larger series of contiguous vilas containing
approximately 15,000 residents), high levels of poverty,
and greater than average morbidity rates in comparison
to Porto Alegre as a whole. Vila Santos residents con-
sistently made reference to the existence of sexual dou-
ble standards (both critically and favorably) which tol-
erate if not encourage extramarital male sexual activity
at the same time they castigate women who engage in
such behavior. The vast majority of adults in Vila Santos
were knowledgeable about HIV transmission and safer
sex and were generally alarmed at the rising number of
HIV cases in their community. Yet, most were unaware
of their own HIV status. And, while they recognized that
one cannot reliably ascertain HIV antibody status based
on physical appearance, most Vila Santos residents
espoused a safer sex rule of thumb in which condoms
were considered necessary only when the partner’s sex-
ual or social status was uncertain. Safer sex involved
determining whether one’s partner was certo-normal,
reliable and presumably HIV negative-rather than
knowing his or her actual HIV status. In other words,
Vila Santos residents used a variety of social criterion as
markers for a person’s HIV status. At one end of the
spectrum were prostitutes, “loose” women, homosexu-
als and travestis (male to female transgendered persons
who frequently take female hormones and have silicon
implants, yet retain male genitalia)-all of whom, by
virtue of their association with sex and sacanagem, were
NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASREPORT ON SEXUAL POLITICS
presumed likely to be HIV positive. At the other end of
the spectrum were wives, who were assumed to be
monogamous and “clean.” In spite of the fact that many
men had sexual relations with other men’s wives, few
men seemed to believe that their own wives would have
such affairs.
The most troubling aspect of this HIV risk-reduction
strategy is that it intensifies the risk of HIV transmission
from husbands to their own wives. While many women
in Vila Santos know or suspect that their husbands or pri-
mary partners are having extramarital affairs, they often
feel powerless to do anything in response. Except for
contraceptive purposes, to suggest using a condom
would be tantamount to a charge of infidelity, which
could in turn place a woman in jeopardy of physical or
emotional violence and of losing her socially valued, albeit constraining, position as wife and mother. In such
a context, the utility of most safer sex campaigns is
identified AIDS education as one of the key family-
related issues they wanted to address, along with other
issues such as divorce, child support, employment rights
and health more generally. They further demonstrated
their commitment to link AIDS education with other
more general concerns at the 1994 International
Women’s Conference held in Rio de la Plata, where they
stimulated a lively discussion of AIDS-related issues. In
this sense, the outreach workers have positioned AIDS
education within larger issues of gender and family,
rather than simply exhorting condom use as the only
solution to preventing HIV transmission.
The connection between AIDS education and
empowerment around gender/sexual politics is
even more striking in the case of gay men and
travestis, where AIDS prevention in general and AIDS
NGOs in particular have played critical roles in facili-
tating the growth of emerging “gay”
identities and communities in Brazil.
Given their literally constructed genders and bodies GAPAhas worked closely with trav- estis since its founding in 1989,
as well as their everyday work as prostitutes, when the group launched its initial
travestis provided the workshop organizers with condom-distribution programs. Over
the course of the years, the organiza-
nuanced insiahts into Brazilian sexual culture. tion’s HIV prevention activities with
dubitable, since their emphasis on negotiated sexuality, condoms and sacanagem does not address the underly-
ing gender inequalities that shape most sex relations
between women and men in Brazil.
This point that safer sex between women and men is
fundamentally a question of gender power was not lost
on the group of female, community-based legal outreach
workers with whom I worked in Vila Santos and several
other vilas in Porto Alegre. The Porto Alegre outreach
program began in 1993 under the auspices of the Legal
Assistance and Gender Studies Group (THEMIS), a
feminist NGO which organized an in-depth training pro-
gram on basic legal rights for women leaders from low-
income communities. By early 1994, the outreach work-
ers had severed formal ties with THEMIS. As an
independent group, they were one of the few organiza-
tions in Porto Alegre that specifically focused on the
concerns of low-income women. Several of the outreach
workers completed a training program organized in
early 1994 by the Support Group for AIDS Prevention
(GAPA) as part of a pilot project to encourage neigh-
borhood- rather the NGO-based AIDS education. As a
result, the group gradually incorporated AIDS education
into its various activities and projects. When the out-
reach workers opened a Family Support Center in Vila
Santos in early 1994, for example, they specifically
travestis have mainly consisted of
biweekly work groups in which par-
ticipants discuss questions related to AIDS, travesti and
sex-professional identities, violence and the batalha-
the “battle” of working as a prostitute.
Given their quite literally constructed genders and
bodies as well as their everyday work as prostitutes, it is
not surprising that the travestis at the GAPA groups pro-
vided nuanced insights into Brazilian sexual culture.
Most work-group participants began by setting forth the
basic attributes of the active/passive system outlined
above. But many participants raised questions about
why supposedly “real men”-meaning their clients, many of whom are married–desire and engage in sex-
ual practices that are supposedly inappropriate, such as
taking the “active” role in oral sex and the “passive” role
in anal sex. While some travestis suggested that the
active/passive system was not an accurate description of
reality, others said that they would starve if they did not
anally penetrate their clients, since so many of them
sought the “passive” role. Other participants openly
derided the bofe panquecas-roughly, “studs who flip,”
the seemingly masculine, straight men who once in bed
turn over and want be penetrated anally. They would
continue, they said, their quest to find a “real man” who
would take care of them sexually, and perhaps emotion-
ally and financially as well. But regardless of their inter-
pretation of the active/passive system, nearly all agreed
VoL XXXI, No 4 JAN/FEB 1998 29REPORT ON SEXUAL POLITICS
that travestis occupy a unique category that is conceptu-
ally distinct from biological women, male to female
transsexuals-men who have their penis removed surgi-
cally and have vaginoplasty-and “male-gendered” gay
men. At the same time, nearly all travestis classify
themselves as homosexuals or bichas (“fags”). And
despite some differences of opinion regarding the
causes or origins of homosexuals and travestis, nearly
all work-group participants agreed that while one might
be born a homosexual, one must become a travesti.
Through various group discussions and exercises,
including the drawing and writing of life histories, it
became evident that while the first steps toward becom-
ing a travesti pre-dated becoming involved in sexual-
economic exchange, the two were clearly related, and
much of the physical transformation and acquisition of
travesti and homosexual subcultural knowledge
occurred within the context of the batalha. This in turn
highlighted the critical role of violence in the
lives of travestis, most of whom work as pros-
titutes on the streets. Travesti prostitution zones
are characterized by high levels of violence.
Clients and police officers frequently beat up
on travestis, and many travesti sex workers rob
clients when they refuse to pay, or incorporate
theft into their regular sexual-economic
exchanges. The result is recurring cycles of
violence in which many clients think that trav-
estis are violent criminals, and travestis fear
that clients and the police will harass, beat or
kill them.
The centrality of violence in the lives of trav-
estis was painfully highlighted when Cris
Loura. a regular work-grout Darticitant, was
murdered while working on the streets in January, 1994.
Subsequent discussions in the work groups revealed that
the perpetrator was a client who regularly frequented the
locale where the killing occurred. Heidi, a travesti who
witnessed the murder, reported the crime and the killer’s
identity to the police, but little was done in the way of
investigation, and the prime suspect was never appre-
hended. Cris Loura’s death was the latest in a series of
at least five murders of group participants over a 12-
month period.
Growing anger over these killings and police inaction
prompted the members of the group, led by coordinator
Suzanna Lopes, to organize a protest march to pressure
the authorities and to direct attention to the problem of
violence against travestis. Over the course of the weeks
that followed, Lopes and other GAPA staff people
reached out to Porto Alegre’s human rights, feminist and
progressive legal communities, and many organizations
and political leaders joined the mobilization. The protest
took place on August 23, 1994, beginning at GAPA’s
offices and ending at Democratic Square, where a pop-
ular agit-prop street theater group presented an anti-
violence skit. Over 80 people participated in the march,
many carrying picket signs with expressions such as “a
fag isn’t a beast,” “travestis are citizens,” and “prostitu-
tion is also work.” All those involved considered the
mobilization a great success. Not only did it capture
media and popular attention, but it was the first time that
a group of travestis montadas-that is, dressed and
made up as women-took over one of Porto Alegre’s
most important postdictatorship public forums. Travesti
presence in the political sphere continued in the months
immediately following the march. Heidi testified in a
public hearing on sex work, while a regular participant
from the travesti work groups was appointed as the
alternate representative for the sex-professional seat on
the municipal Commission on Human Rights and
Against Violence and Discrimination.
Bahia, the sign reads, This growing involvement of “You Know How to travestis in Porto Alegre’s politi- Avoid AIDS.” The “okay” sign refers to cal life, itself a product of self-
anal sex. esteem building and individual
and collective empowerment cul-
tivated through more than five years of GAPA-directed
travesti work groups, constitutes an important step
toward breaking the veil of silence surrounding violence
against travestis in Brazil. But whether this emerging
travesti political collectivity in Porto Alegre will con-
tinue in the future is uncertain. While travestis were the
spark behind the protest, it was primarily leaders from
GAPA and Porto Alegre’s human rights community who
did most of the actual organizing that made political
action possible. This raises the question of whether trav-
estis might not be dependent on, rather than co-partners
with, GAPA. The work groups undoubtedly remain a
critical space where travestis can reflect upon their lives
in the hopes of imagining and creating a more just future.
But given the myriad forms of socially and institution-
30 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
5
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sREPORT ON SEXUAL POLITICS
other men, and that few Brazilian HIV/AIDS prevention
programs seriously and systematically addressed the
specific issues that AIDS raises in the lives of these men.
As a result, in 1993, the Brazilian Interdisciplinary
AIDS Association (ABIA) and the Rio and Sdo Paulo-
based Group for the Valorization, Integration and
Dignity of AIDS Patients (Pela VIDDA) founded the
“Men Who Have Sex With Men Project.” As the pro-
ject’s official name suggests, it has sought to reach out
to all men who have sex with other men, including those
who do not identify themselves as homosexual or gay.
With the support of several international foundations
who began to fund NGOs and gay groups involved in
AIDS prevention among men who have sex with men in
the early 1990s, this project has developed an impres-
sive and unprecedented array of activities in Rio de
Janeiro and Sao Paulo. 3 These include a mapping of the
homosexual social spaces in these two cities, street out-
reach at these identified locations, and the production of
a video entitled “Men,” consisting of the life stories of
three homosexual men. Their work has also included
extensive collaboration with medical institutions and
time, during the first year of the project, many
of the discussions that occurred within the pro-
ject’s activities centered on questions related to what it
means to live as a homosexual/gay/bicha. As a result,
while the project was certainly open to the participation
of men who did not identify themselves as homosexual,
the emerging emphasis on gay identities suggested that
the concept of “Men Who Have Sex with Men” neither
resonated strongly with most group participants nor suc-
ceeded in attracting large numbers of nonhomosexually
identified men to the project’s activities. The fact that the
project is commonly referred to as the “Homosexualities
Project,” rather than the “Men Who Have Sex with Men
Project,” highlights the degree to which it has become
associated with identity-based ideas of homosexuality
and gayness.
Another interesting development that has occurred
over the course of the Homosexualities Project is the
shifting weight given to explicitly HIV-related issues,
such as safer sex and HIV positivity. Like the GAPA
travesti work groups, the Homosexualities Project staff
sought to contextualize HIV prevention within the larger
contexts of the lives of men who have sex with men.
Accordingly, when many participants wanted to focus
VOL XXXI, No 4 JAN/FEB 1998
ally sanctioned physical, economic and symbolic vio- gay organizations, the production of AIDS education
lence that most travestis experience on a daily basis, materials geared specifically toward men who have sex
changing the status quo will require the construction of a with men, the training of peer educators, an expression-
“politics of space” that goes beyond the confines of the ist theater workshop, a weekly gay cultural space, safer
GAPA work groups and the prostitution zones and into sex and sexuality workshops, and a large-scale research
the many fields of power in which gender and sexual project related to sexuality and HIV/AIDS among men
hierarchies are (re)produced. Facing such a daunting who have sex with men.
task, travestis will likely need to form alliances and The Homosexualities Project has also prompted a
coalitions such as those which occurred in response to number of interesting changes in Pela VIDDA and
Cris Loura’s murder. This in turn will require that other ABIA. During my initial fieldwork with these groups
political organizations, including many gay and women’s during 1991 and 1992, organized discussions and activ-
rights groups, overcome their long-standing reluctance to ities related to homosexuality had been surprisingly
incorporate travesti-related issues into their regular polit- rare-if not a bit taboo-even though a majority of
ical agendas. And if travestis are to work with main- group participants were self-identified gay men. By late
stream organizations, they will have to address the strong 1994, the Homosexualities Project had become the most
misogyny that characterizes many aspects of the travesti dynamic activity at both ABIA and Pela VIDDA, with
subculture. the weekly gay cultural space and theater workshops
consistently bringing together more than 80 men of mul-
After a decade of AIDS prevention work, it had tiple sexual identities and from diverse socio-economic
become clear to many AIDS activists that large backgrounds.
numbers of Brazilian men were continuing to If the Homosexualities Project has been a great suc-
become infected with HIV as a result of having sex with cess, as nearly all participants and organizers would
argue, the question remains as to whether the
project has had an equal impact among men
AIDS prevention is not solely about behavior who position themselves differently in terms
of the three systems of Brazilian sexuality dis- modification, but requires a critical cussed earlier. Since its inception, a majority
understanding of-and perhaps subtantial of the project’s participants have identified
themselves as gay or bichas rather than as
chanaes within-Brazilian erotic culture. “actives” or nonhomosexuals. At the same
31REPORT ON SEXUAL POLITICS
on issues tied to gay lifestyles and identities, the project a few
staff went along with these desires, facilitating collec- ing g;
tive discussions in which HIV and AIDS per se were not No
given as much attention as might be expected within an ment
HIV/AIDS prevention program. But by the end of the focus
first year of the project, issues related to HIV and AIDS many
began to be raised with increasing frequency. Project porar.
staff were pleased with this development, since it Brazi
demonstrated that rather than parroting safer sex rules, men
as often happens at one-time AIDS education panels and exten’
safer sex workshops, the men who regularly participated tive c
in the project’s activities were now consciously trying to rights
integrate HIV/AIDS-related issues into their sexual and chang
social lives as a whole. archie
The Homosexualities Project has also had an impor- male
tant impact on the organizational development of the gay mains
community in Brazil. Unlike in the 1980s and early ficult
years ago-illustrates the strength of this emerg-
ay movement.
netheless, despite such impressive accomplish-
s and the significant public and media attention
ed on homosexuality and gay culture, there are
contradictions and ambiguities within the contem-
y gay movement in Brazil. To begin with, the
lian gay movement remains primarily driven by
and centered on male issues, although to a lesser
t than in the 1980s. This may help explain the rela-
learth of cooperation between gay and women’s
organizations, despite the fact that both seek to
:e the structure of gender relations and sexual hier-
es in Brazil. Equally uncertain is whether some gay
leaders are more concerned with assimilating into
stream Brazilian culture than the perhaps more dif-
task of changing the many levels of gender
inequality that characterize Brazilian
society. And there remains the question
Some gay male leaders seem more concerned of what is lost and gained in organizing around gay and other sexual “identities.” with assimilating into mainstream Brazilian For if the “traditional” system of
culture than with the more difficult task of active/passive sexuality supports a series
of troublesome power relationships, the
changing gender and sexual hierarchies in Brazil. “gay” model is closely linked to the exis-
tence of a consumer-oriented Brazilian “pink economy” centered on commer-
1990s, when relations between AIDS NGOs and homo- cial establishments, fashion and gay tourism, which may
sexual rights groups in Rio de Janeiro were at best tenta- be more about making dollars than progressive politics.
tive, AIDS and gay activists have been working together As a result, the Brazilian gay movement remains largely, on the Homosexualities Project on an everyday basis though by no means exclusively, a middle-class phe-
without any significant difficulties. In fact, it is unlikely nomenon that may not be including poorer Brazilians or
that the project would have taken hold in Rio de Janeiro those, such as travestis, who may not fit into the assimi-
without the extensive support of local gay organizations lationist project.
and the owners of the growing number of gay commer-
cial establishments in these communities. In this manner, the Homosexualities Project can be seen as both the
product of and a key player behind an emerging
Brazilian gay movement, and it is this interconnected-
ness to and interdependence on the many spaces that
constitute contemporary Brazilian gay culture that ulti-
mately explain the project’s success. The gay media’s
coverage of the activities of the Homosexualities Project
has also helped solidify a growing, self-conscious com-
munity of gay/homosexual/queer individuals.
Like the work of the neighborhood outreach workers
in Porto Alegre, the Homosexualities Project and the
GAPA work groups for travesti sex professionals
demonstrate that AIDS NGOs and AIDS education pro-
grams have played a pivotal role in the development of
gender/sexual identity politics in Brazil. The fact that a
proposal to legalize some form of same-sex unions is
being seriously considered in the Brazilian federal legis-
lature-a possibility that would have been unimaginable
Yet, there is also a line of sexual politics within the
emerging Brazilian gay community that offers “gay cul-
ture,” rather than rigid political ideologies or sexual-
identity constructions, as a means to both unsettle het-
eronormativity and to bring together all kinds of
Brazilians, including heterosexual women, who might
wish to change the existing gender/sexual order. Exactly
how these tensions will play out within Brazilian gay
communities-and between gay political activists and
other progressive social movements-remains to be
seen. No doubt it will depend to a great extent on how
Brazilian civil society develops in the current neoliberal
climate. But the increasingly open discussion of sexual-
ity brought about by the AIDS epidemic, and the incred-
ible growth in AIDS NGOs, gay rights organizations,
and other activist groups that has occurred as result of
mobilization around the HIV/AIDS epidemic, are help-
ing lay the groundwork for the development of a sexual
politics in which gender equality, sexual autonomy and
sexual self-determination may become realities.
Gender, Sexuality and AIDS Prevention in Brazil
1. Richard G. Parker, Bodies, Pleasures and Passions: Sexual Culture
in Contemporary Brazil (Boston: Beacon Press, 1991).
2. Donna Goldstein, “AIDS and Women in Brazil: An Emerging
Problem,” Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 39, No. 7 (1994),
pp. 919-929.
3. The following agencies have provided financial support for the
Homosexualities Project: the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the MacArthur Foundation, the Inter- American Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the joint World
Bank/Brazilian federal government AIDS program.