Trans visibility as political currency in Brazil: Dynamising gender insertion in politics?

Latin America continues to be one of the world’s deadliest regions for trans people. Still, there have been some changes in how trans personalities appear in the political scenario and relate to their institutions (Ciszek, 2017). In Brazil, the rise in popularity of transgender media personalities and the unprecedented election of trans parliamentarians have shown the conquest of some space in the country’s conservative political landscape. If under President Jair Bolsonaro Brazilians watched dangerous remarks against the LGBTQIA+ community (De Barros & Da Silva, 2022), the political emergence of trans politicians, such as Erika Hilton, has encompassed that of trans artists and celebrities, like Pabllo Vittar and Lynn da Quebrada (Levy, 2023). Indeed, the movement towards trans visibility nationwide shows some ruptures towards a less heteronormative public opinion. This paper concentrates on the emergence of several trans women to analyse the dynamics of their insertion into Brazil’s political landscape via the politics of media visibility. Being the mainstream media a substantial broker in the political and institutional system (Porto, 2012; de Albuquerque, 2019), and since the shift in the political discourse post-Luis Inácio Lula da Silva in 2023, questions arise about the possibility of political change for trans individuals. The masculinisation of power in Brazilian politics has been a recurrent topic in literature (e.g., Fernandes, 2012), but the intersectional power of actors is much lesser known. Could the interest in transgender personalities trigger the consolidation of a more receptive institutional environment in relation to them? Could it help loosen not only the patriarchal status quo but also trample misogynist and homophobic political platforms? By revisiting literature and several instances of how the media has covered transgender media and politicians in recent years, this research seeks to explore potential forms of destabilising the heteronormative principles that have guided Brazilian institutions since their onset.