Love and More Desire" Tbe Building of a Brazilian Mouement
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Jelvrns N. Gnn¡N 4 "More Love and More Desire" Tbe Building of a Brazilian Mouement Tne vBen !978 was a magical time in Btazil. After more than a decaôe..of harsh military rule, the generals' demise seemed imminent-l Hundreds of thousands of metalworkers, silent for a decade, laid down tools and struck against the government's regressive wage policies. their *Down Students filled the main streets of the states' capitals chanting, with the dictatorship!" Radio stations played previously censored songs, and they hit the top of the charts. Blacks, women' and even homosexuals began Du ðgedt978andL979,adozen or so and intellectuals met weeklY machismo. As the summer progressed, the group's name became a heated topic of debate. Did the name Action Nucleus for Homosexuals' Rights discou¡- ('We Are) to pay homage to the publication put out by the Argentine Ho- mosexual Liberation Front, South America's fust gay rights group, which 97 92 "Monp Lov¡ ¡Np Monn Drsrnn": Bn¡zrr James N. Green 93 had come to life in Buenos Aires in 1,971 anddisappeared in the long night contingent moved into the Villa Euclides soccer stadium to participate in of the military dictatorship in March 1976. Others proposed a name rhat the rally at the end of the march, thousands of bystanders welcomed them would clearly express the purpose of the organization: Grupo de Af¡- with applause.2 Six weeks later, one thousand gay men' lesbians, trans- mação Homossexual (Group of Homosexual Affirmation). Designarions vestites, and prostitutes rveaved through the center of São Paulo, protest- that included the word "gay" were roundly rejected because, participants ing police abuse and chanting, 'Abaixo a repressãe-mais amor e mais argued, they imitated the movement in the United States. tesão" (Down with repression-more love and more desire). A movement The final compromise-Somos: Grupo de Afrmação Homossexual- had been born.3 was the name the group took to a debate held on 6 February !979 atthe Fifteen years later, in June 1995, over three hundred delegates rePre- Social Science Department of the University of São Paulo, Brazil's largest senting gay and lesbian groups in sixry countries of Asia, Europe, North and most prestigious university. The debate, which was parr of a four-day America, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America gathered series of panel discussions on the topic of organizing Brazil's "minori- in Rio deJaneiro to attend the week-long Seventeenth Annual Conference ties,"-" reference to women, blacks, indigenous people, and homosexu- of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA). At the opening als-became the coming-out event for the Brazilian gay andlesbian move- ceremony a federal congresswoman from the Workers Parry launched a ment. The program on homosexuality featured a panel of speakers that national campaign for same-sex domestic partnerships and for a consti- included editors of the journal Lampião and members of Somos. More tutional amendment to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orienta- than three hundred people packed the auditorium to amend the event. The tion. At week's end, the delegates and nr¡o thousand gay and lesbian sup- discussion period that followed the panelists' presentations was electric, porters ended the convention by celebrating the nventy-sixth anniversary as charges and countercharges between representatives of leftist student of the Stonewall rebellion with a march along Atlantic Avenue, the boule- groups and gay and lesbian spealiers crisscrossed the assembly room. For vard that borders the shining white sands of Copacabana Beach. A 25- the fi¡st time, lesbians spoke openly in public about the discrimination foot-wide yellow banner demanding "Full Citizenship for Gays, Lesbians, that they encountered. Gay students complained that the Brazilian Left and Transvestites" led the parade. A contingent of women followed, car- was homophobic. Defenders of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution rying signs advocating "Lesbian Visibility," which drew applause from argued that fighting against specific issues, such as sexism, racism, and ho- observers. Drag queens teased and flirted with onlookers from atop a pink- mophobia, would divide the Left. Rather, they opined, people should hued "Priscilla" school bus and t'wo large sound trucks lent by the bank unite in a general struggle against the dictatorship. workers' union. Many participants dressed in Carnavalesque masks and The trst controversy in the emergent Brazilian gay rights movement costumes. A 125-meter-long rainbow flag billowed in the wind. At the end was taking shape. The lines were drawn. The rhetoric was already being of the march, people tearfully sang the national anthem and lingered until spun. Vithin a year) tactical questions about aligning with other social a light rain dispersed the crowd. The movement had come of age. movements or maintaining political and organizational autonomy would split Somos, by then the country's largest gay rights group, leaving other Bur Nor Lncer organizations throughour the country demoralized and without direction. Lncnr Few who listened to this public debate, however, could imagine how Although Brazilian colonial law had considered sodomy a sin, punishable quickly agay andlesbian movement would explode onto rhe Brazilian po- by burning at the stake, the 1830 Imperial Criminal Code eliminated all litical scene. In a little more than ayear) a thousand lesbians and gay men references to sodomy.a Late-nineteenth- and m¡entieth-century laws, packed the Ruth Escobar Theater near downtown São Paulo to attend an however, restricted homosexual behavior. Adults engaging in sexual ac- indoor rally at the closing ceremony of the First National Gathering of tivities with other adults in a public setting could be charged with "pub- Organized Homosexual Groups. A month later, on L May 1980, with the lic assault on decency' for "offending propriety with shameless exhibi- city surrounded by the Second Army and the zone under state of siege, a tions or obscene acts. flr -gestures' Practiced in public places or places contingent of fifty openly gay men and lesbians marched with hundreds frequented by the public,ànd-which. assaults and scandalizes soci- of thousands of other Brazilians through the downtown working-class ety."s This provision, a revised carryove neighborhood of São Bernardo in the nation's industrial center to com- provided the legal basis for controlling memorate International'Workers' Day during a general strike. When the moerotic or homosocial behavior.'With N. Green 95 94 "Mons Lovr, exo Monn DEsrRE": Bnezrr James hierarchically related categories of socially and culturally judge could define and punish "improper" or "indecent" actions that did language, inro the jender: into the classes of masculino (masculine) and feminino not conform to heterocentric constructions. Another method for regulat- defi"nei (femininã). Building uPon the perception of anatomical difference' it is ing public manifestations of homosexuality \Mas to charge a person with ihis distinction between activity and passivity that most clearly structgres police vagrancy. The could arrest anyone who could not prove a means Brazilian notions of masculinþ and femininity and that has traditionally classi- of support and a fixed domicile or who "earned a living in an occupation served as the organizing principle for a much wider world of sexual prohibited by law or manifestly offensive to morality and propriety."6 fications in day-to-day Brazilian life.8 These two legal provisions gave the police the power to arbitrarily in- carcerate homosexuals who engaged in public displays of effeminacy, Thus, in same-sex activities, the bornem takes the "active" role of wore feminine clothing or makeup, earned a living through prostitution, partner. The bicha takes the "passive' role of be- p..retratirrg his ^his or took advantage of a shadowed building to enjoy a nocturnal sexual li- "r"liy penetrãted; ,."rr"l "passivity' ascribes to him the socially -g 'Whereas aison. Criminal codes with vaguely defined notions of proper morality iníerior"'"iffy st"io, of the "woman." the sexually penetrated "pas- and public decency and provisions that strictly controlled vagrancy pro- sive" male is socially stigmatized, the male who assumes the public (and vided a legal net that could readily entangle those who transgressed so- presumably privatei rolJ of the penetrating bomem is not' As long as he cially sanctioned sexual norms. Underpaid police extorted bribes from maintains ih. t.*o"l role attributed to a "real" man, he may engage in men caught in compromising situations or without proper identification sex with other men without losing social status'9 or work papers. Homosexuality, then, although not explicitly illegal, was similarly, women who transgress traditional notions of femininity- behavior that could be easily contained and controlled by Brazilian police ,rr*if.rtini'masculine characteiistics, expressing independence' or feel- and courts. ing sexual re marginalized' Many- lesbians' re- jeäion of including "passivity," place them paradigm' A common pe- Gey Ln,s¡reN pnroR ãutside th ant gender nNo Lrrn To rHE r97os "big shoe," reflects the ñ* expression for a lesbian ) sdpatão,literally Brazil went through dramatic changes in the 1950s and 1960s. Millions social anxiety about strong, masculinized women'1o of rural peasants and workers flooded the country's cities, and industrial Until the iate 1950s thãre were no exclusively g y or lesbian bars in public production expanded to provide employment and many new manufac- Br azll. Public homosociability centered on parks, plazas, cinemas, tured products for the domestic market. Cities such as Recife and Sal- rest rooms, or the tenuous occopation of restaurants, sidewalk cafes, and vador in the impoverished northeast, and Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo ,1i.., of pápoh, beaches. Because many single people,lived with their in the industrializing southeast acted as magnets for homosexuals from families o"ail ,tt.y married, sexual encounters often took place in rooms rural areas who sought anonymity in large cities away from their fami- rented by the hour or in the homes of friends.