Travesti: Sex,
Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes (Worlds of
Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture)
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 earn their living through
prostitution and discusses the reasons prostitution, for most travestis, is a
positive and affirmative experience.