Linhas e entrelinhas: homossexualidades, categorias e políticas sexuais e de gênero nos discursos da imprensa gay brasileira

Abstract

This research investigates the field of print publications conceived as "gay press" in Brazil, taking them as relevant instances of the creation and re-elaboration of sexual and gender categories and identities, and of the political visibility and experiences of homosexualities in Brazil from the second half of the twentieth century. Focusing on newspapers and magazines mostly addressed to a homosexual male reader, published in the 1960s (O Snob), 1970s (Gente Gay e Lampião da Esquina), 1990s (Sui Generis) and 2000s (Junior), the thesis analyzes how these publications at the same time forge and are immersed within the processes of identifications that reiterate, displace or pose a risk to these categories and their classification potential. It critically questions the themes privileged by these vehicles for being in the interest of its audience and in the “public interest”. It investigates, fundamentally, the construction and the search for legitimacy of a journalistic field that is claimed as “gay press”, taking it as a social field of intersection between social subjectivities, practices and knowledge which produces discourses about the experiences of subjects and ways of being. It also examines how the demarcation of these publications as gay involve complex processes of negotiation about dynamics that circumscribe and exceed the (re)constructions of categories in these vehicles, associated with the processes of construction of a lectureship shaped in homosexualities that are historically crossed by multiplicities, disputes and contradictory strategies of affirmation and social legitimacy. Beyond dialogue with sexuality and gender studies and socio-anthropological research addressing journalism as a field of symbolic production, the methodology involves the analysis of discourses circulated in the cited publications, and interviews with journalists and employees currently working or formerly employed by this segment of the press. The aim is to construct a dialogic reflection between the researcher and journalists about both their practices and this discursive production.