Travesti

Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes

Author: Don Kulick
ISBN: 9780226461007

In this dramatic and compelling narrative, anthropologist Don Kulick follows the lives of a group of transgendered prostitutes (called travestis in Portuguese) in the Brazilian city Salvador. Travestis are males who, often beginning at ages as young as ten, adopt female names, clothing styles, hairstyles, and linguistic pronouns. More dramatically, they ingest massive doses of female hormones and inject up to twenty liters of industrial silicone into their bodies to create breasts, wide hips, and large thighs and buttocks. Despite such irreversible physiological changes, virtually no travesti identifies herself as a woman. Moreover, travestis regard any male who does so as mentally disturbed. Kulick analyzes the various ways travestis modify their bodies, explores the motivations that lead them to choose this particular gendered identity, and examines the complex relationships that they maintain with one another, their boyfriends, and their families. Kulick also looks at how travestis

Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publish Date: 2009-01-12

Subjects: Psychology / General, Psychology / Human Sexuality, Social Science / General, Social Science / Gender Studies, Social Science / Popular Culture

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Cross-Cultural Center (Location: Feminism (FEMM))