‘Black,fat and travesti’: Decolonial artivist approaches to trans and travesti beauty and embodiment in São Paulo,Brazil

Abstract

Trans and travesti artivists in São Paulo, Brazil use their artistic production to critique transphobic violence and celebrate gender nonconformity. Some of the key voices in that movement, like Jup do Bairro, Ayô Tupinambá, Beta Boechat and Letícia Carolina Nascimento, centre much of their work on the harms of Eurocentric and cisnormative beauty standards for their own existence as Black, fat and gender nonconforming Brazilians from working-class origins. Their music, videos and activism are evidence of a powerful, counterhegemonic notion of beauty and bodily value, demonstrating new paths for decolonising normative ‘aesthetic hierarchies’ in Brazil. Their work also provides key insights regarding how a decolonial praxis centred on fat, Black and trans/travesti forms of embodiment produces defiant forms of self-love that are doubly subversive as bodily assemblages that exceed the norm and that reterritorialise beauty and ugliness with new meanings. Furthermore, their artivism can also be considered a transfeminist ‘political-pedagogical praxis’ that communicates decolonial forms of embodiment to a wider audience, and inspires others to follow on their footsteps, illuminating potential paths for social transformation.