POSSIBLE TRANS* FUTURES?: Intersectionalities and ambivalences in the access and permanence of trans people* in Brazilian public higher education

Abstract

The past decade has been marked by important passages in the access of trans* people to Brazilian higher education, linked to a range of recently conquered rights, particularly the “social name” policy [nome social], which regulates in public institutions the use of the name by which trans* people identify themselves, and the implementation of affirmative policies in public universities by the end of the 2010s. Starting from the provocation of one of the interviewees that “thinking about the future is a privilege of the few”, this article seeks to intertwine trajectory narratives of trans* students to discuss the ambivalences of these subjects’ access and permanence in the university, described both as a space permeated by institutional violence and subjective processes of “sickening” [adoecimento], as well as a space that allowed gender experimentations and the construction of affective and political networks. Therefore, it is fundamental to adopt an intersectional perspective that understands the differences and inequalities permeated in these reports, allowing different access/es and permanence/s in (and beyond) the university space.