The Gender of Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes Author(s): Don Kulick Source: , New Series, Vol. 99, No. 3 (Sep., 1997), pp. 574-585 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/681744 Accessed: 23-02-2016 11:29 UTC

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The Gender of Brazilian Transgendered Dllnetitllte

MALESWHO ENJOY being anally penetrated by other One of the basic things one quickly learns from any males are, in many places in the world, an object of spe- analysis of LatinAmerican sexual categories is that sex cial cultural elaboration.Anywhere they occur as a cul- between males in this part of the world does not neces- turally recognized type, it is usually they who are sarily result in both partners being perceived as homo- classiEledand named, not the males who penetrate them sexual. The crucial determinantof a homosexual classi- (who are often simply called men"). Furthermore,to fication is not so much the fact of sex as it is the role the extent that male same-sex sexual relations are stig- performed during the sexual act. A male who anally matized, the object of social vituperation is, again, penetrates another male is generally not considered to usually those males who allow themselves to be pene- be homosexual. He is considered, in all the various local trated, not the males who penetrate them. Anywhere idioms, to be a Uman";indeed, in some communities, they constitute a salient cultural category, men who en- penetrating another male and then bragging about it is joy being penetrated are believed to think, talk, and act one way in which men demonstrate their masculinityto in particular, identifiable, and often cross-gendered others (Lancaster1992:241; cf. Brandes 1981:234).Quite manners. Whatis more, a large numberof such men do different associations attach themselves to a male who in fact behave in these culturally intelligible ways. So allows himself to be penetrated. That male has placed whether they are the maVus, hijras, kathoeys, xaniths, himself in what is understood to be an unmasculine, or berdaches of non-Western societies, or the mollies passive position. By doing so, he has forfeited manhood and fairies of our own history, links between habitual and becomes seen as something other than a man. This receptivity in anal sex and particulareffeminate behav- cultural classification as feminine is often reflected in ioral patterns structure the ways in which males who the general comportment, speech practices, and dress are regularly anally penetrated are perceived, and they patterns of such males, all of which tend to be recogniz- males think structure the ways in which many of those able to others as effeminate. about and live their lives.l A conceptual system in which only males who are area of the world in which males who enJoybe- One penetrated are homosexual is clearly very different ing anally penetrated receive a very high degree of cul- from the modern heterosexual-homosexual dichotomy tural attention is Latin America. Any student of Latin currentlyin place in countries such as the United States, America will be familiarwith the effervescent Elgureof where popularunderstanding generally maintains that a the effeminate male homosexual. Called mar>con, co- is gay no matter chon, joto, marzea, pajara, loca, frango, bicha, or any male who has sex with another male to the role of number of other names depending on where one Emds how carefully he may restrict his behavior him (see Murrayand Dynes 1987 and Dynes 1987 for a penetrator.3This difference between Latin American sampling), these males all appear to share certain be- and northernEuro-American understandings of sexual- havioral characteristics and seem to be thought of, ity is analyzed with great insight in the literature on throughoutLatin America, in quite similarways.2 male same-sex relations in Latin America, and one of the chief merits of that literature is its sensitive docu- mentation of the ways in which erotic practices and sex- ual identities are culturallyorganized. DONKULICK is an associateprofessor in the Departmentof Social Somewhat surprisingly, the same sensitivity that ,, 10691 Stockholm,. informs the literature when it comes to sexuality does

AmencanAnthropologist99(3):574-585. Copyright 63 1997, AmericanAnthropological Association.

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not extend to the realm of gender. A question not Travestis occupy a strikingly visible place in both broached in this literatureis whether the fundamental Brazilian social space and in the Brazilian cultural differences that exist between northernEuro-American imaginary.5All Brazilian cities of any size contain tra- and LatinAmerican regimes of sexuality might also re- vestis, and in the large cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao sult in, or be reflective of, different regimes of gender. Paulo, travestis numberin the thousands. (In SalvadorX This oversight is odd in light of the obvious and impor- travestis numberedbetween about 80 and 250, depend- tant links between sexuality and gender in a system ing on the time of year.)6Travestis are most exuberantly where a simple act of penetration has the power to pro- visible during Brazil'sfamous annual Carnival,and any foundly alter a male's cultural deEmition and social depiction or analysis of the festival will inevitably in- status. Instead of exploring what the differences in the clude at least a passing reference to them, because their construction of sexuality might mean for differences in gender inversions are often invoked as embodimentsof the construction of gender however analysis in this lit- the Carnivalspirit. But even in more mundanecontexts erature falls back on familiar concepts. So just as gen- and discourses, travestis figure prominently.A popular der in northern Europe and North America consists of Saturday afternoon television show, for example, in- men and women, so does it consist of men and women cludes a spot in which female impersonators, some of in Latin AmericaXwe are told. The characteristics as- whom are clearly travestis, get judged on how beautiful cribed to and the behaviorexpected of those two differ- they are and on how well they mime the lyrics to songs ent types of people are not exactly the same in these two sung by female vocalists. Another weekly television different parts of the world, to be sure, but the basic show regularly features Valeria,a well-known travesti. gender categories are the same. Tieta, one of the most popular television novelas in re- This article contests that view. I will argue that the cent years, featured a special guest appearance by sexual division that reseachers have noted between Rogeria, another famous travesti. And most telling of those who penetrate and those who are penetrated ex- the special place reserved for travestis in the Brazilian tends far beyond sexual interactions between males to popular imagination is the fact that the individual constitute the basis of the gender division in Latin widely acclaimed to be most beautiful woman in Brazil America. Gender, in this particular elaboration, is in the mid-1980s was ... a travesti. That travesti, grounded not so much in sex (like it is, for example, in Roberta Close, became a household name throughout modern northem European and North American cul- the country. She regularlyappeared on national televi- tures) as it is grounded in sexuality. This difference in sion, starredin a play in Rio, posed nude (with demurely grounding generates a gender conElgurationdifferent crossed legs) in Playboy magazine, was continually in- from the one that researchers working in LatinAmerica terviewed and portrayed in virtually every magazine in have postulated, and it allows and even encourages the the country, and had at least three songs written about elaboration of cultural spaces such as those inhabited her by well-known composers. Althoughher popularity by effeminate male homosexuals. Gender in Latin declined when, at the end of the 1980s, she left Brazil America should be seen not as consisting of men and to have a sex-change operation and live in Europe, women, but rather of men and not-men, the latter being Roberta Close remains extremely well-known. As re- a category into which both biological females and males cently as 1995, she appeared in a nationwide advertise- who en,ioyanal penetrationare culturallysituated. This ment for Duloren lingerie, in which a photographof her specific situatedness provides individuals-not just passport, bearing her male name, was transposed with a men who enJoyanal penetration, but everyone with a photographof her looking sexy and chic in a black lace conceptual frameworkthat they can draw on in order to undergarment.The caption read, '4Vocenao imagina do understand and organizetheir own and others' desires, que uma Duloren e capazf (Youcan't imaginewhat a Du- bodies, affective and physical relations, and social loren can do). roles. Regrettably, the fact that a handful of travestis manage to achieve wealth, admiration,and, in the case of Roberta Close, an almost iconic cultural status says very little about the lives of the vast majorityof traves- The Body in Question tis. Those travestis, the ones that most Brazilians only glimpse occasionally standing along highways or on The evidence for the arguments developed here dimly lit street corners at night or read about in the will be drawn from my fieldwork in the Braziliancity of crime pages of their local newspapers, comprise one of Salvador,among a group of males who enJoyanal pene- the most marginalized,feared, and despised groups in tration. These males are effeminized prostitutes known Braziliansociety. In most Braziliancities, travestis are throughout Brazil as travestis (a word derived from so discriminated against that many of them avoid transvestir, to cross-dress).4 venturing out onto the street during the day. They are

This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Tue, 23 Feb 2016 11:29:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 576 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST * VOL. 99, NO. 3 * SEPTEMBER1997 regularlythe victims of violent police brutalityand mur- facture automobile parts such as dashboards.Although der.7The vast maJorityof them come from very poor it is widely thought to be illegal for industrialoutlets to backgrounds and remain poor throughout their lives, sell this silicone to private individuals, at least one or living a hand-to-mouthexistence and dying before the two travestis in any city containing a silicone manufac- age of 50 from violence, drug abuse, health problems turingplant will be well connected enough to be able to caused or exacerbated by the silicone they inJect into buy it. Wheneverthey sense a demand, these travestis their bodies, or, increasingly,AIDS. contact their supplier at the plant and travel there in The single most characteristicthing about travestis great secrecy to buy several liters. They then resell this is their bodies. Unlike the dragperformers examined by silicone (at a hefty profit) to other travestis, who in turn Esther Newton (1972) and recently elevated to the pay travestis who work as bombadeiras (pumpers) to status of theoretical paragons in the work of postmod- irMectit directly into their bodies. ernist queer scholars such as (1990), tra- Most travestis in Salvador over the age of 17 have vestis do not merely don female attributes.They incor- some silicone in their bodies. The amount of silicone porate them. Sometimes starting at ages as young as 10 that individual travestis choose to iIuect ranges from a or 12, boys who self-identify as travestis begin ingesting few glasses to up to 18 liters. (Travestis measure sili- or inJecting themselves with massive doses of female cone in liters and water glasses (copos), six of which hormones in order to give their bodies rounded fea- make up a liter.) Most have between two and five liters. tures, broad hips, prominentbuttocks, and breasts. The The maiiorityhave it in their buttocks, hips, knees, and hormones these boys take either are medications de- inner thighs. This strategicplacement of silicone is in di- signed to combat estrogen deficiency or are contracep- rect deference to Brazilian aesthetic ideals that con- tive preparations designed, like the pill," to prevent sider fleshy thighs, expansive hips, and a prominent, pregnancy. In Brazil such hormones are cheap (a teardrop-shapedbunda (buttocks) to be the hallmarkof month'ssupply, which would be consumed by a travesti feminine beauty. The majorityof travestis do not have in a week or less, costs the equivalent of only a few dol- silicone in their breasts, because they believe that sili- lars) and are sold over the counter in any pharmacy. cone in breasts (but not elsewhere in the body) causes Boys discover hormones from a variety of sources. cancer, because they are satisfied with the size of the Most of my travesti friends told me that they learned breasts they have achieved through hormone consump- about hormones by approachingadult travestis and ask- tion, because they are convinced that silicone inec- ing them how they had achieved the bodies they had. tions into the chest are risky and extremely painful, or Otherswere advised by admirers,boyfriends, or clients, because they are waitingfor the day when they will have who told them that they would look more attractiveand enough money to pay for silicone implants (protese) make more money if they looked more like girls. surgically inserted by doctors. A final reason for a gen- Hormones are valued by travestis because they are eral disinclinationto inJectsilicone into one's breasts is inexpensive, easy to obtainyand fast working.Most hor- that everyone knows that this silicone shifts its position mones produce visible results after only about two very easily. Everytravesti is acquaintedwith several un- months of daily ingestion. A problem with them, how- fortunate others whose breasts have either merged in ever, is that they can, especially after prolonged con- the middle, creating a pronounced undifferentiated sumption, result in chronic nausea, headaches, heart swelling known as a pigeon breast" (peito de pomba), palpitations, burning sensations in the legs and chest, or whose silicone has descended into lumpy protru- extreme weight gain, and allergic reactions. In addition, sions just above the stomach. the doses of female hormones required to produce breasts and wide hips make it difficult for travestis to achieve erections. This can be quite a serious problem, The Body in Process since a great percentage of travestis' clients want to be penetrated by the travesti (a point to which I shall re- Why do they do it? One of the reasons habitually turn below). What usually happens after several years cited by travestis seems self-evident. Elizabeth, a 29- of taking hormones is that most individuals stop, at year-old travesti with ll/2 liters of silicone in her hips least for a while, and begin inecting silicone into their and one water-glass of silicone in each breast, ex- bodies. plained it to me this way: To mold my body, you lmow, Just as hormones are procured by the individual be more feminine, with the body of a woman."But why travestis themselves, without any medical intervention do travestis want the body of a woman? or interference, so is silicone purchased from and ad- When I first began asking travestis that question, I ministered by acquaintances or friends. The silicone expected them to tell me that they wanted the body of a available to the travestis in Salvador is industrial sili- woman because they felt themselves to be women. That cone, which is a kind of plastic normallyused to manu- was not the answer I received. No one ever offered the

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explanation that they might be women trapped in male behind their self-production as travestis, both privately bodies, even when I suggested it. In fact, there is a and professionally. Travestis are quick to point out that, strong consensus among travestis in Salvador that any in addition to making them feel more feminine, female travesti who claims to be a woman is mentally dis- forms also help them earn more money as prostitutes. turbed. A travesti is not a woman and can never be a At night when they work on the street, those travestis woman, they tell one another, because God created who have acquired pronounced feminine features use them male. As individuals, they are free to embellish them to attract the attention of passing motorists, and and augment what God has given them, but their sex they dress (or rather,undress) to display those features cannot be changed. Any attempt to do so would be di- prominently. sastrous. Not only do sex-change operations not pro- But if the goal of a travesti's bodily modificationsis duce women (they produce, travestis say, only bichas to feel feminine and be attractive to men, what does she castradas, castrated homosexuals), they also inevitably think about her male genitals? result in madness. I was told on numerous occasions The most important point to be clear about is that that, without a penis, semen cannot leave the body. virtually every travesti values her penis: aThere'snot a When trapped, it travels to the brain, where it collects better thing in the whole world," 19-year-oldAdriana and forms a Zstone"that will continue to increase in size once told me with a big smile. Any thought of having it until it eventually causes insanity. amputated repels them. aDeus e maist (God forbid), So Roberta Close notwithstanding, travestis mod- many of them interject whenever talk of sex-change op- ify their bodies not because they feel themselves to be erations arises. bWhat,and never cum (i.e., ejaculate, women but because they feel themselves to be femi- gozar) again?!"they gasp, horrified. nine" (femtntno) or Ulikea woman"(se sentir mulher), Despite the positive feelings that they express qualities most often talked about not in terms of inher- about their genitals, however, a travesti keeps her pe- ent predispositions or essences but rather in terms of nis, for the most part, hidden, aimprisoned"(presa) be- behaviors, appearances, and relationships to men.8 tween her legs. That is, travestis habituallypull their pe- WhenI asked Elizabethwhat it meant when she told me nises down between their legs and press them against she felt feminine, for example, she answered, I like to their perineums with their underpanties.This is known dress like a woman. I like when someone when as making a cuntX(fazer uma buceta). This cunt is an men admire me, you know?. . . I like to be admired, importantbodily practice in a travesti's day-to-daypub- when I go with a man who, like, says: 'Sheez, you're re- lic appearance. It is also crucial in another extremely ally pretty, you're really feminine.' That . . . makes me importantcontext of a travesti's life, namelyin her rela- want to be more feminine and more beautiful every day, tionship to her marido (live-in boyfriend). The maridos you see?" Similar themes emerged when travestis of travestis are typically attractive, muscular,tattooed talked about when they first began to understand that young men with little or no education and no jobs. Al- they were travestis. A common response I received though they are not pimps (travestis move them into from many different people when I asked that question their rooms because they are impassioned lapaix- was that they made this discovery in connection with at- onadal with them, and they eject them when the pas- traction and sexuality. Eighteen-year-oldCintia told me sion wears thin), maridos are supported economically that she understood she was a travesti from the age of by their travesti girlfriends.All these boyfriendsregard seven: themselves, and are regarded by their travesti girl- friends, as homens (men) and, therefore, as I already liked girls' things, I nonho- played with dolls, played with mosexual. . . . girls' things; I only played with girls. I didn't play with boys. I just played with these two boys; during the after- One of the defining attributes of being a homern noon I always played with them . . . well, you know, rubbing (man) in the gender system that the travestis draw on penises together, rubbing them, kissing on the mouth. and invoke is that a man will not be interested in an- [Laughs.J other male's penis. A man, in this interpretativeframe- work, will happily penetrate another male's anus. But Forty-one-year-old Gabriela says that she knew he will not touch or express any desire for another that she was a travesti early on largely because since male's penis. For him to do so would be tantamountto childhood I always liked men, hainr legs, things like relinquishinghis status as a man. He would stop being a that, you know?"Banana, a 34-year-oldtravesti, told me man and be reclassified as a viado (homosexual, fag- the [understandingthat I was a] travesti came after, got), which is how the travestis are classified by others you know, I, um, eight, nine years, ten years old, I felt at- and how they see themselves. tracted, really attracted to men." Travestis want their boyfriends to be men, not The attraction that these individuals felt for males viados. They require,in other words, their boyfriendsto is thus perceived by them to be a maiiormotivating force be symbolically and socially different from, not similar

This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Tue, 23 Feb 2016 11:29:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 578 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST * VOL. 99, NO. 3 * SEPTEMBER1997 to, themselves. Therefore, a travesti does not want her or incrediblyfun sex, their partneris always either a cli- boyfriendto notice, comment on, or in any way concern ent or what they call a vtcio, a word that literally means himself with her penis, even duringsex. Sex with a boy- vice" or uaddiction"and that refers to a male, often en- friend, consists, for the most part, of the travesti suck- countered on the street while they are working, with ing the boyfriend'spenis and of her boyfriend penetrat- whom they have sex for free. Sometimes, if the vicio is ing her, most often from behind, with the travesti on all especially attractive, is known to have an especially fours or lying on her stomach on the bed. If the boy- large penis, or is known to be especially versatile in bed, friend touches the travesti at all, he will caress her the travesti will even pay him. breasts and perhaps kiss her. But no contact with the travesti's penis will occur, which means, according to The Body in Context most travestis I have spoken to, that travestis do not usually have orgasms duringsex with their boyfriends. At this point, having illustrated the way in which What surprised me most about this arrangement the body of a travesti is constructed, thought about, and was that the ones who are the most adamantthat it be used in a variety of contexts, I am ready to address the maintained are the travestis themselves. They respect question of cultural intelligibility and personal desir- their boyfriends and maintain their relationships with ability. Whydo travestis want the kind of body they cre- them only as long as the boyfriends remain Umen-"If a ate for themselves? What is it about Brazilian culture boyfriend expresses interest in a travesti's penis, be- that incites and sustains desire for a male body made comes concerned that the travesti ejaculate duringsex, feminine throughhormones and silicone? or worst of all, if the boyfriend expresses a desire to be By phrasingthat question primarilyin terms of cul- anally penetrated by the travesti, the relationship, all ture, I do not mean to deny that there are also social and travestis told me firmly, would be over. They would economic considerations behind the production of tra- comply with the boyfriend's request, they all told me, vesti bodies and subjectivities. As I noted above, a body because if someone offers me their ass, you think Im full of silicone translates into cash in the Braziliansex- not gonna take it?" Afterward, however, they were ual marketplace. It is important to understand, how- agreed, they would lose respect for the boyfriend. ever particularly because popular and academic dis- You'll feel disgust (nojo) toward him,"one travesti put courses about prostitution tend to frame it so narrowly it pithily. The boyfriend would no longer be a man in in terms of victimization, poverty, and exploitation- their eyes. He would, instead, be reduced to a viado. that males do not become travestis because they were And as such, he could no longer be a boyfriend.Traves- sexually abused as children or just for economic gain. tis unfailingly terminate relationships with any boy- Only one of the approximately40 travestis in my close friend who deviates from what they consider to be circle of acquaintances was clearly the victim of child- proper manlysexuality. hood sexual abuse. And while the vast mqority of tra- This absolute unwillingness to engage their own vestis (like, one must realize,the vast majorityof people penises in sexual activity with their boyfriendsstands in in Brazil) come from working-class or poor back- stark contrast to what travestis do with their penises grounds, it is far from impossible for poor, openly ef- when they are with their clients. On the street, travestis feminate homosexual males to find employment, espe- know they are valued for their possession of a penis. Cli- cially in the professions of hairdressers, cooks, and ents will often request to see or feel a travesti'spenis be- housecleaners, where they are quite heavily repre- fore agreeing to pay for sex with her, and travestis are sented. agreed that those travestis who have large penises are Another factor that makes it problematic to view more sought after than those with small ones. Similarly, travestis primarily in social or economic terms is the several travestis told me that one of the reasons they fact that the sexual marketplacedoes not requiremales stopped taking hormones was because they were losing who prostitute themselves to be travestis. Male prosti- clients. They realized that clients had begun avoiding tution (where the prostitutes, who are called miches, them because they knew that the travesti could not look and act like men) is widespread in Brazil and has achieve an erection. Travestis maintain that one of the been the topic of one published ethnographic study most common sexual services they are paid to perform (Perlongher 1987). Also, even transgendered prostitu- is to anally penetrate their clients. tion does not require the radical body modiElcations Most travestis eruoy this. In fact, one of the more that travestis undertake. Before hormones and silicone surprisingfindings of my study is that travestis, in sig- became widely available (in the mid-1970s and mid- nificant and highly markedcontrast to what is generally 1980s, respectively) males dressed up as females, using reported for other prostitutes, enJoy sex with clients.9 wigs and foam-rubberpadding (pirelli), and worked Thatis not to say they enoy sex every time or with every successfully as prostitutes. Some males still do this to- client. But whenever they talk about thrilling,fulfilling, day.

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Finally, it should be appreciated that travestis do (Kulick 1996b). So whereas the gender of females re- not need to actually have sex with their clients to earn mains Elxed,the gender of males fluctuates and shifts money as prostitutes. A large percentage (in some continually. cases, the bulk) of a travesti'sincome from clients is de- Why can males be either male or female, but fe- rived from robbing them. In orderto rob a client, all that males can only be female? The answer, I believe, lies in is required is that a travesti come into close physical the way that the gender system that the travestis draw proximity with him. Once a travesti is in a client's car or on is constituted. Debates about transgendered indi- once she has begun caressing a passerby's penis, asking vidualssuch as 18th-centurymollies, Byzantineeunuchs, him seductively if he Uquergozar" (wants to cum), the Indian huras, Native American berdaches, U.S. trans- rest, for most travestis, is easy. Either by pickpocketing sexuals, and others often suggest that those individuals the client, assaulting him, or if she does have sex with constitute a third, or intermediate, gender, one that is him, by threatening afterwardto create a public scan- neither male or female or one that combines both male dal, the travesti will often walk away with all the client's and female.lo Journalists and social commentators in money (Kulick 1996a). Thus it is entirely possible to de- Brazil sometimes take a similar line when they write rive a respectable income fromprostitution and still not about travestis, arguing that travestis transcend male- consume hormones and inJectsilicone into one's body. ness and femaleness and constitute a kind of postmod- In addition to all those considerations, I also phrase ern androgeny. the question of travestis in terms of culture because, My contention is the opposite. Despite outward even if it were possible to claim that males who become physical appearances and despite local claims to the travestis do so because of poverty, early sexual exploi- contrary,there is no third or intermediatesex here; tra- tation, or some enigmatic inner psychic orientation, the vestis only arise and are only culturally intelligible mystery of travestis as a sociocultural phenomenon within a gender system based on a strict dichotomy. would remain unsolved. What is it about the under- That gender system, however, is structured according standings, representations, and definitions of sexuality, to a dichotomy different from the one with which many gender, and sex in Braziliansociety that makes travesti of us are familiar,anchored in and arising from princi- subjectivity imaginableand intelligible? ples different from those that structure and give mean- Let me begin answering that question by noting an ing to gender in northernEurope and NorthAmerica. aspect of travesti language that initially puzzled me. In The fundamental difference is that, whereas the their talk to one another, travestis frequently refer to northernEuro-American gender system is based on sex, biological males by using feminine pronouns and femi- the gender system that structures travestis'perceptions nine adjectival endings. Thus the common utterance and actions is based on sexuality. The dominantidea in Uelaficou doida" (she was furious) can refer to a tra- northern Euro-Americansocieties is that one is a man vesti, a woman, a gay male, or a heterosexual male who or a woman because of the genitals one possesses. That has allowed himself to be penetrated by another male. biological difference is understood to accrete differ- All of these differentpeople are classified by travestis in ences in behavior, language, sexuality, perception, the same manner. This classiElcatorysystem is quite emotion, and so on. As scholars such as Harold Gar- subtle, complex, and context sensitive; travestis narrat- finkel (1967), Suzanne Kessler and Wendy McKenna ing their life stories frequentlyuse masculine pronouns (1985[1978]),and Janice Raymond (1979) have pointed and advjectivalendings when talking about themselves out, it is within such a culturalsystem that a transsexual as children but switch to feminine forms when discuss- body can arise, because here biological males, for ex- ing their present-day lives. In a similar way, clients are ample, who do not feel or behave as men should, can often referred to as she," but the same client will be re- make sense of that difference by reference to their geni- ferred to with different gendered pronouns depending tals. They are not men; therefore they must be women, on the actions he performs. When a travesti recounts and to be a woman means to have the genitals of a fe- that she struggled with a client over money or when she male. describes him paying, for example, his gender will often Whilethe biological differences between men and change from feminine to masculine. The important women are certainly not igncxredin Brazil, the posses- point here is that the gender of males is subject to fluc- sion of genitals is fundamentally conflated with what tuation and change in travestitalk. Males are sometimes they can be used for, and in the particularconElguration referred to as she" and sometimes as "he."Males, in of sexuality, gender and sex that has developed there, other words, can shift gender depending on the context the determinative criterion in the identification of and the actions they perform. The same is not true for males and females is not so much the genitals as it is the females. Females, even the several extremely brawny role those genitals perform in sexual encounters. Here and conspicuously unfeminine lesbians who associate the locus of gender difference is the act of penetration. with the travestis I know, are never referred to as "he" If one only penetrates, one is a man, but if one gets

This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Tue, 23 Feb 2016 11:29:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 580 AMERICANANTHROPOLOGIST * VOL. 99, NO. 3 * SEPTEMBER1997 penetrated, one is not a man, which, in this case, means the particular way in which travestis talk about gay that one is either a viado (a faggot) or a mulher (a men. Travestis frequently dismiss and disparage gay woman). Tina, a 27-year-oldtravesti, makes the paral- men for pretending to be men"(landar/passar] como lels clear in a story about why she eventually left one sefosse homern), a phrase that initially confounded me, of her ex-boyfriends: especially when it was used by travestis in reference to me. One Sundayafternoon, for example, I was standing 1. TINA: For three years [my marido] was a man for me. A total man (foi homtssimo). Then I was the man,and he was with two travesti friends eating candy in one of Salva- the faggot (viado). dor's main plazas. As two policemen walked by, one 2. DON: What? travesti began to giggle. They see you standing here 3. TINA:Do you see? with us,"she said to me, Uandthey probablythink you're 4. DON: Yes.... But no, how? a man."Both travestis then collapsed in laughterat the 5. TINA:For three years he was a man for me, and afterthose sheer outrageousness of such a profound misunder- three years he became a woman (elefoi mulher). I was the standing. It took me, however, a long time to figure out man, and he was the woman. The Elrstthree years I was what was so funny. together with him, do you see, he penetrated me (ele me I finally came to realize that as a gay man, a viado, I comia) and I sucked [his penis]. I was his woman. am assumed by travestis to dar (be penetrated by men). 6. DON: Yeah . . . I am, therefore, the same as them. But I and all other gay 7. TINA:And after those three years, I was his man. Do you understandnow? Now you get it. men who do not dress as women and modify their bod- 8. DON: But what happened? What,what made him . . . ies to be more feminine disguise this sameness. We 9. TINA:Change? hide, we deceive, we pretend to be men, when we really 10. DON: Change,yeah. are not men at all. It is in this sense that travestis can 1l. TINA: It changed with him touching my penis.... He perceive themselves to be more honest, and much more began doing other kinds of sex things. UYoudon't have to radical, than "butch"(machuda) homosexuals like my- cum [i.e., have orgasms] on the street [with clients]" [he self. It is also in this sense that travestis simply do not told me], UIcan jerk you off (eu bato uma punhetinha pra understand the discriminationthat they face through- voce). And later on we can do other new things."He gives out Brazil at the hands of gay men, many of whom feel me his ass, he gave me his ass, started to suck [my penis], that travestis compromise the public image of homo- and well, there you are. sexuals and give gay men a bad name. Note how Tina explains that she was her boy- Whatall these examples point to is that for traves- friend'swoman, in that he penetrated me and I sucked tis, as reflected in their actions and in all their talk about [his penis]" (line 5). Note also how Tina uses the words themselves, clients, boyfriends,vicios, gay men, women, vtado (faggot) and mulher (woman) interchangeably and sexuality, there are two genders; there is a binary (lines 1 and 5) to express what her boyfriendbecame af- system of opposites very firmly in place and in opera- ter he started expressing an interest in her penis and af- tion. But the salient difference in this system is not be- ter he started "givinghis ass"to her. This discursivecon- tween men and women. It is, instead, between those flation is similar to that used when travestis talk about who penetrate (comer, literallyuto eat" in BrazilianPor- their clients, the vast majorityof whom are believed by tuguese) and those who get penetrated (dar, literally travestis to desire to be anally penetrated by the tra- to give"),in a system where the act of beingpenetrated vesti a desire that, as I just explained,disqualifies them has transformative force. Thus those who only eat" from being men and makes them into viados, like the (and neverigive") in this system are culturally desig- travestisthemselves. Hence they are commonlyreferred nated as "men";those who give (even if they also eat) to in travestis'talk by the feminine pronoun ela (she). are classified as being something else, a something that Anal penetration figures prominently as an engen- I will call, partlyfor want of a culturallyelaborated label deringdevice in another importantdimension of traves- and partly to foregroundmy conviction that the gender tis' lives, namely, their self-discovery as travestis. When system that makes it possible for travestis to emerge I asked travestis to tell me when they first began to un- and make sense is one massively oriented towards, if derstandthat they were travestis, the most common re- not determined by, male subjectivity, male desire, and sponse, as I noted earlier, was that they discovered this male pleasure, as those are culturallyelaborated in Bra- in connection with attraction to males. Sooner or later, zil: Unotmen-" What this particular binarity implies is this attractionalways led to sexuality, which in practice that females and males who enJoybeing penetrated be- means that the travesti began allowing herself to be long to the same classificatory category, they are on the penetrated anally. This act is always cited by travestis same side of the gendered binary. They share, in other as crucial in their self-understandingas travestis. words, a gender. A final example of the role that anal penetration This sharing is the reason why the overwhelming plays as a determining factor in gender assignment is majorityof travestis do not self-identify as women and

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have no desire to have an operationto become a woman mate that ideal. And this, of course, is precisely what even though they spend their lives dramaticallymodify- travestis do. They appropriateand incorporate the ide- ing their bodies to make them look more feminine. Cul- als of beauty that their culture offers them in orderto be turally speaking, travestis, because they enXioybeing attractive to men: both real men (i.e., boyfriends, some penetrated, are structurally equivalent to, even if they clients, and vicios), and males who publicly pretend to are not biologically identical to, women. Because they be men"(clients and vicios who enJoybeing penetrated). already share a gender with women, a sex-change op- eration would (again, culturally speaking) give a tra- vesti nothing that she does not already have. All a sex- Conclusion: Penetrating Gender change operation would do is rob her of a significant Whatexactly is gender and what is the relationship source of pleasure and income. between sex and gender?Despite several decades of re- It is importantto stress that the claim I am making search, discussion, and intense debate, there is still no here is that travestis share a gender with women, not agreed-upon, widely accepted answer to those basic that they are women (or that women are travestis). Indi- questions. Researchers who discuss gender tend to vidual travestis will not always or necessarily share in- either not define it or, if they do define it, do so by plac- dividual women's roles, goals, or social status. Just as ing it in a seemingly necessary relationship to sex. But the worldviews, self-images, social statuses, and possi- one of the main reasons for the great success of Judith bilities of, say, a poor black mother, a single mulatto Butler's Gender Trouble(and in anthropology,Marilyn prostitute, and a rich white businesswoman in Brazil Strathern'sThe Gender of the Gift) is surely because differ dramatically, even though all those individuals those books called sharp critical attention to under- share a gender, so will the goals, perspectives, and pos- standings of gender that see it as the culturalreading of sibilities of individualtravestis differ from those of indi- a precultural, or prediscursive, sex. And what is 'sex' vidual women, even though all those individualsshare a anyway?"asks Butler in a key passage: gender. But inasmuch as travestis share the same gen- der as women, they are understood to share (and feel Is it natural, anatomical, chromosomal, or hormonal, and themselves to share) a whole spectrum of tastes, per- how is a feminist critic to assess the scientific discourses which purport ceptions, behaviors, styles, feelings, and desires. And to establish such facts" for us? Does sex have a history? Does each sex have a different one of the most important of history, or those desires is under- histories? Is there a histoxy of how the duality of sex was stood and felt to be the desire to attract and be attrac- established, a genealogy that might expose the binary op- tive for persons of the opposite gender.ll The desire to tions as variable construction? Are the ostensibly natural be attractive for persons of the opposite gender puts facts of sex discursively produced by various scientific pressure on individuals to attempt to approximate cul- discourses in the service of other political and social inter- tural ideals of beauty, thereby drawingthem into patri- ests? If the immutable character of sex is contested, per- archal and heterosexual imperatives that guide aes- haps this construct called sex" is as culturallyconstructed thetic values and that frame the direction and the as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, content of the erotic gaze.l2 And although attractive with the consequence that the distinction between sex and male bodies get quite a lot of attention and exposure in gender turns out to be no distinction at all. [1990:S7] Brazil, the pressure to conform to cultural ideals of It is only when one fully appreciates Butler'spoint beauty, in Brazil as in northern Euro-Americansocie- and realizes that sex stands in no particularly privi- ties, is much stronger on females than on males. In all leged, or even necessary, relation to gender that one can these societies, the ones who are culturally incited to begin to understand the various ways in which social look (with all the subtexts of power and control that groups can organize gender in different ways. My work that action can imply) are males, and the ones who are among travestis has led me to define gender, more or exhorted to desire to be looked at are females. less following Eve Sedgwick (1990:27-28), as a social In Brazil, the paragon of beauty, the body that is and symbolic arena of ongoing contestation over spe- held forth, disseminated, and extolled as desirable in cific identities, behaviors, rights, obligations, and sexu- the media, on television, in popularmusic, duringCarni- alities. These identities and so forth are bound up with val, and in the day-to-daypublic practices of both indi- and productive of male and female persons, in a hierar- vidual men and women (comments and catcalls from chically ordered cultural system in which the male/ groups of males at women passing by, microscopic female dichotomy functions as a primaryand perhapsa string bikinis, known throughoutthe country asfio den- model binarism for a wide range of values, processes, tat [dental floss], worn by women at the beach) is a relationships, and behaviors. Gender, in this rendering, feminine body with smallish breasts, ample buttocks, does not have to be about men" and women." It can and high, wide hips. Anyone wishing to be considered just as probably be about amen" and anot-men," a desirable to a man should do what she can to approxi- slight but extremely significant difference in social

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Whentravestis, maricas, or co- tions and facilitates the production of different identi- chones call each other Ushe"or when they call men who ties, understandings,relationships, and imaginings. have been anally penetrated ashe,"they are not just be- One of the main puzzles I have found myself having ing campy and subcultural,as analyses of the language to solve about Braziliantravestis is why they exist at all. of homosexual males usually conclude; I suggest that Turning to the rich and growing literature on homo- they are perceptively and incisively reading off and sexuality in Latin America was less helpful than I had enunciating core messages generated by their cultures' hoped, because the arguments developed there cannot arrangementsof sexuality, gender, and sex. account for (1) the cultural forces at work that make it I realize that this interpretation of travestis and seem logical and reasonable for some males to perma- other effeminate male homosexuals as belonging to the nently alter their bodies to make them look more like same gender as women will seem counterintuitive for women, even though they do not consider themselves to many Latin Americans and students of Latin America. be women and (2) the fact that travestis regularly(not Certainlyin Brazil, people generally do not refer to tra- to say daily) perform both the role of penetrator and vestis as she," and many people, travestis will be the penetrated in their various sexual interactions with cli- first to tell you, seem to eIuoy going out of their way to ents, vicios, and boyfriends. In the first case the litera- offend travestis by addressing them loudly and mock- ture on homosexuality in LatinAmerica indicates that it ingly as ao senhor" (sir or mister).l5The very word tra- should not be necessary to go to the extremes that Bra- vesti is grammaticallymasculine in BrazilianPortuguese zilian travestis go to (they could simply live as effemi- (o travesti), which makes it not only easy but logical to nate, yet still clearly male, homosexuals), and in the sec- address the word's referent using masculine forms.l6 ond case, the literature leads one to expect that There are certainly many reasons why Brazilians travestis would restrict their sexual roles, by and large, generally contest and mock individualtravestis' claims to that of being penetrated.l3Wrong on both counts. to femininity, not least among them being travestis' Whatis lacking in this literature, and what I hope strong associations with homosexuality, prostitution, this essay will help to provide, is a sharper under- and AIDS all highly stigmatized issues that tend to standing of the ways in which sexuality and gender con- elicit harsh condemnation and censure from many peo- Elgurewith one another throughout Latin America. My ple. Refusal to acknowledge travestis' gender is one main point is that for the travestis with whom I work in readily available way of refusing to acknowledge tra- Salvador,gender identity is thought to be determinedby vestis' right to exist at all. It is a way of putting travestis one's sexual behavior.l4My contention is that travestis back in their (decently gendered) place, a way of deny- did not just pull this understandingout of thin air;on the ing and defending against the possibilities that exist contrary,I believe that they have distilled and clarified within the gender system itself for males to shift from a relationshipbetween sexuality and gender that seems one category to the other.l7 to be widespread throughout Latin America. Past re- During the time I have spent in Brazil, I have also search on homosexual roles in Latin America (and by noted that the harshest scorn is reserved for unattrac- extension, since that literature builds on it, past re- tive travestis. Travestis such as RobertaClose and some search on male and female roles in Latin America) has of my own acquaintances in Salvador who closely ap- perceived the links to sexuality and gender to which I proximate cultural ideals of feminine beauty are gener- have drawn attention (see, for example, Parker 1986: ally not publicly insulted and mocked and addressed as 157; 1991:43-53, 167), but it has been prevented from men. On the contrary, such travestis are often admired theorizingthose links in the way I have done in this arti- and regardedwith a kind of awe. One conclusion I draw cle because it has conflated sex and gender. Re- from this is that the commonplace denial of travestis' searchers have assumed that gender is a cultural read- gender as not-men may not be so much a reaction ing of biological males and females and that there are, againstthem as gender crossers as it is a reactionagainst therefore, two genders: man and woman. Effeminate unattractiveness in people (women and other not-men), male homosexuals do not fit into this particularbinary; whose job it is to make themselves attractive for men. they are clearly not women, but culturallyspeaking they Seen in this light, some of the hostility against (unattrac- are not men either. So what are they? Callingthem 66not tive) travestis becomes intelligible as a reaction against quite men, not quite women,"as (1992: them as failed women, not failed men, as more orthodox 274) does in his analysis of Nicaraguan cochones, is interpretationshave usually argued. hedging: a slippage into "language to de- Whetheror not I am correct in claimingthat the pat- scribe a society in which gender, as Lancasterso care- terns I have discussed here have a more widespread fully documents, is structured according to a powerful existence throughoutLatin America remains to be seen. and coercive binary. It is also not hearing what co- Some of what I argue here may be specific to Brazil,and chones, travestis, and other effeminate LatinAmerican some of it will inevitably be class specific. In a large,

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extraordinatily divided, and complex area like Latin essay has benefited immensely from the critical comments of America, many different and competing discourses and Ines Alfano, Lars Fant, MarkGraham, Barbara Hobson, Ken- understandings about sexuality and gender will be neth Hyltenstam, Heather Levi, Jerry Lombardi, Thais available in different ways to different individuals. Machado-Borges,Cecilia McCallum,Stephen Murray,Bambi Those differences need to be investigated and docu- Schieffelin, Michael Silverstein, Britt-MarieThuren, David Valentine,Unni Wikan,and MargaretWillson. My biggest mented in detail. My purpose here is not to suggest a debt is to the travestis in Salvador with whom I work and, espe- monolithic and immutablemodel of gender and sexual- cially, to my teacher and coworker, Keila Simpsom,to whom ity for everyone in LatinAmerica. I readily admit to hav- I owe everything. ing close Elrsthandunderstanding only of the travestis l. Chauncey 1994; Crisp 1968;Jackson 1989; Nanda 1990; with whom I worked in Salvador, and the arguments Trumbach1989; Whitehead 1981;Wikan 1977. presented in this essay have been developed in an ongo- 2. See, for example, Almaguer1991, Carrier 1995, FIY 1986, ing attempt to make sense of their words, choices, ac- Guttman 1996, Lancaster 1992, Leiner 1994, Murray 1987, tions, and relationships. 1995, Parker 1991, Prieur 1994, and Trevisan 1986. At the same time, though, I am struck by the close 3. One of the few contexts in which ideas similar to Latin similarities in gender and sexual roles that I read in Americanones are preserved in NorthAmerican and northern other anthropologists' reports about homosexuality European understandingsof male sexuality is prisons. See, and male-female relations in countries and places far for example, Wooden and Parker 1982. 4. This article is based on ll months of anthropological away from Salvador, and I think that the points dis- fieldwork and archival research and more than 50 hours of cussed here can be helpful in understandinga number recorded speech and interviews with travestis between the of issues not explicitly analyzed, such as why males ages of ll and 60 in Salvador, Brazil's third-largestcity, with throughoutLatin America so violently fear being anally a population of over 2 million people. Details about the field- penetrated, why men who have sex with or even live work and the transcriptionsare in Kulick n.d. with effeminate homosexuals often consider them- 5. Travestis are also the subject of two short anthropolog- selves to be heterosexual, why societies like Brazil can ical monographs in Portuguese: de Oliveira 1994 and Silva grant star status to particularlyfetching travestis (they 1993. There is also an article in English on travestis in Salva- are just like women in that they are not-men, and dor: Cornwall 1994. As far as I can see, however, all the sometimes they are more beautiful than women), why ethnographicdata on travestis in that article are drawnfrom women in a place like Brazil are generally not offended de Oliveira'sunpublished master's thesis, which later became her monograph,and from other published sources. Some of or outraged by the prominence in the popular imagina- the informationin the article, such as the author's claim that tion of travestis like RobertaClose (like women, traves- 90 percent of the travestis in Salvador are devotees of the tis like Close are also not-men, and hence they share Afro-Brazilianreligion candomble, is also hugely inaccurate. women's tastes, perceptions, feelings, and desires), 6. In the summer months leading up to Carnival,travestis why many males in LatinAmerican countries appear to from other Braziliancities flock to Salvadorto cash in on the be able to relatively unproblematicallyenJoy sexual en- fact that the many popular festivals preceding Carnivalput counters with effeminate homosexuals and travestis men in festive moods and predispose them to spend their (they are definitionally not-men, and hence sexual rela- money on prostitutes. tions with them do not readily call into question one's 7. de Oliveira1994; Kulick 1996a;Mott and Assuncao 1987; self-identity as a man), and why such men even pay to be Silva 1993. penetrated by these not-men (for some men being pene- 8. The literal translation of se senttr mulher is zto feel woman,"and taken out of context, it could be read as meaning trated by a not-man is perhaps not as status- and iden- that travestis feel themselves to be women. In all instances in tity-threateningas being penetratedby a man; for other which it is used by travestis, however, the phrase means to men it is perhaps more threatening,and maybe, there- feel like a woman," Zto feel as if one were a woman (even fore, more exciting). If this essay makes any contribu- though one is not)."Its contrastive opposite is ser mulher (to tion to our understanding of gender and sexuality in be woman). Latin America, it will be in revitalizing exploration of 9. In her study of female prostitutes in London, for exam- the relationship between sexuality and gender and in ple, Day explains that Uaprostitute creates distinctions with pronding a clearerframework within which we mightbe her body so that work involves veiy little physical contact in able to see connections that have not been visible before. contrast to private sexual contacts. Thus . . . at work . . . only certain types of sex are acceptable while sex outside work involves neither physical barriers nor forbidden zones" Notes (1990:98). The distinctions to which Day refers here are in- verted in travesti sexual relationships. Acknowledgments. Research supportfor fieldwork in Bra- 10. Bornstein 1994;Elkins and King 1996;Herdt 1994. zil was generously provided by the Swedish Council for Re- 11. One gendered, absolutely central, and culturally in- search in the Humanitiesand Social Sciences (HSFR)and the cited desire that is almost entirely absent from this picture is Wenner-GrenFoundation for AnthropologicalResearch. The the desire for motherhood. Although some readers of this

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article have suggested to me that the absence of maternal grammaticallyfeminine words mona and bicha instead of desires negates my thesis that travestis share a gender with travesti. women, I am more inclined to see the absence of such desire 17. The possibility for males to shift gender-at least tem- as yet another reflex of the famous Madonna-Whorecomplex: porarily,in (hopefully) hidden, private encounters seems to travestis align themselves, exuberantlyand literally, with the be one of the majorattractions that travestis have for clients. Whore avatar of Latin womanhood, not the Mother incarna- From what many different travestis told me, it seems clear tion. Also, note again that my claim here is not that travestis that the erotic pleasure that clients derive from being anally are women. The claim is that the particularconfigurations of penetrated is frequently expressed in veIy specific, heavily sex, gender, and sexuality in Brazil and other LatinAmerican gender-saturated,ways. I heard numerous stories of clients societies differ from the dominantconfigurations in northern who not only wanted to be penetrated but also, as they were Europe and North America, and generate different arrange- being penetrated, wanted the travesti to call them gostosa ments of gender, those that I am calling men and not-men. (delicious/sexy, using the feminine grammaticalending) and Motherhood is indisputably a crucial component of female address them by female names. Stories of this kind are so roles and desires, in that a female may not be considered to common that I find it hard to escape the conclusion that a have achieved full womanhood without it (and in this sense, significant measure of the erotic delight that many clients travestis [like female prostitutes?] can only ever remain in- derive from anal penetration is traceable to the fact that the complete, or failed, women). I contend, however, that moth- sexual act is an engendering act that shifts their gender and erhood is not dete7minative of gender in the way that I am transformsthem from men into not-men. claiming sexuality is. 12. I use the word heterosexuality purposely because tra vesti-boyfriendrelationships are generallyconsidered, by tra- References Cited vestis and their boyfriends, to be heterosexual. I once asked Edilson, a 35-year-old marido who has had two long-term Almaguer,Tomas relationships in his life, both of them with travestis, whether 1991 ChicanoMen: A Cartographyof HomosexualIdentity he considered himself to be heterosexual, bisexual, or homo- and Behavior. Differences 3:75-100. sexual. I'm heterosexual; I'm a man," was his immediate Bornstein, Kate reply. gIwon't feel love for another heterosexual,"he contin- 1994 Gender Outlaw:On Men, Womenand the Rest of Us. ued, significantly, demonstratinghow very lightly the north- London:Routledge. ern Euro-Americanclassificatory system has been grafted Brandes, Stanley onto more meaningful Brazilian ways of organizing erotic 1981 Like Wounded Stags: Male Sexual Ideology in an relationships: [For two males to be able to feel love], one of AndulusianTown. In Sexual Meanings:The CulturalCon- the two has to be gay." struction of Gender and Sexuality. S. B. Ortner and H. 13. One importantexception to this is the Norwegian soci- Whitehead,eds. Pp. 21S239. Cambridge:Cambridge Uni- ologist AnnickPrieur's (1994) sensitive work on Mexicanjotas. versity Press. 14. Note that this relationship between sexuality and gen- Butler, Judith der is the opposite of what George Chauncey reports for 1990 Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of early-20th-centuryNew York.Whereas Chauncey argues that Identity. London:Routledge. sexuality and gender in that place and time were organized Carrier,Joseph so that one's sexual behavior was necessarily thought to be 1995 De los Otros: Intimacy and Homosexuality among determined by one's gender identity"(1994:48), my argument Mexican Men. New York:Columbia University Press. is that for travestis in Salvador,and possibly for many people Chauncey,George throughout LatinAmerica, one's gender identity is necessar- 1994 Gay New York:Gender, Urban Cultureand the Mak- ily thought to be determined by one's sexual behavior. ing of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940. New York:Basic One more point here. I wish to note that Unni Wikan,upon Books. reading this paper as a reviewer for the Amertcan Anthro- Cornwall,Andrea pologist, pointed out that she made a similar claim to the one 1994 Gendered Identities and Gender Ambiguity among I argue for here in her 1977 article on the Omani xanith. Travestis in Salvador,Brazil. In Dislocating Masculinity: Rereadingthat article, I discovered this to be true (see Wikan ComparativeEthnographies. A. Cornwalland N. Lindis- 1977:309), and I acknowledge that here. A major difference farne, eds. Pp. 111-132. London:Routledge. between Wikan'sargument and my own, however, is that it is Crisp, Quentin never entirely clear whether Omanis (or Wikan)conceptual- 1968 The Naked Civil Servant. New York:New American ize(s) xaniths as men, women, or as a third gender. (For a Libra. summary of the xanith debate, see Murray1997.) Day, Sophie 15. The exceptions to this are boyfriends,who often but, 1990 Prostitute Women and the Ideology of Workin Lon- interestingly, not always use feminine grammatical forms don. In Cultureand AIDS.D. A. Feldman,ed. Pp. 93-109. when speaking to and about their travesti girlfriends, and New York:Praeger. clients, who invariablyuse feminine forms when negotiating de Oliveira,Neuza Maria sex with travestis. 1994 Damas de paus: O jogo aberto dos travestis no 16. In their day-to-day language practices, travestis sub- espelho da mulher. Salvador, Brazil: Centro Editorial e vert these grammatical strictures by most often using the Didatico da UFBA.

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