À queima-roupa: rebaixamento, prazer e desejo em casos de violência policial contra travestis

Abstract

In this paper, I seek to analyze how notions of humiliation, disgust and contempt inform “images of brutality” regarding LGBT deaths claimed to have been the result of hate crimes or LGBTphobia. Based on data collected during the monitoring of the LGBTI+ movement’s activities in Paraíba between 2012 and 2016, in-depth interviews with its activists, and access to judicial proceedings related to those deaths, I focus especially on the narratives around: a) a scene of attempted murder provoked by a military police officer who, in a street downtown João Pessoa, shot a travesti at close range, one who worked as a prostitute and refused his flirt; and b) the case of the “serial killer of travestis”, a military police officer accused of five murders in a town in the countryside of Paraíba. Thereby, my main purpose is to discuss the relevance of demeaning practices for the configuration of what is taken as brutal, including police violence. Above all, I seek to understand the narrative sexualization of the one who demeans, humiliates, feels disgusted and despises others, and whose act of raping or killing is identified as a gesture of pleasure or raises questions about desire.