“The Indeterminacy of Meanings in Ulysses by James Joyce”: this was the name of the doctoral thesis defended at the Institute of Language Studies, at Unicamp (State University of Campinas), in February this year. But the most important thing was the author's name: Amara Moira. First transgender person to defend a doctorate there using the social name, according to Unicamp itself. This was more than a new title for transvestite, teacher and writer Amara. “Unicamp insisted that I use the social name. Amara was involved in the entire process and it is a message to society that this place [the academy] is ours. There is bureaucracy to prevent the recognition of our names, but they [Unicamp] did their part to make us feel more comfortable.” And there really is bureaucracy. When the reporter arrived at her home to interview Amara, the now doctor was updating her Lattes [academic] CV with the new achievement. However, at the top of the page, there was another name. Four letters that have accompanied – and caused embarrassment – for years. “The Lattes has my registered name. The bureaucracy is absurd to change”, explains Amara. But she is firm. He knows that excessive rules are not the only challenge that crosses his path and he is sure that this will not interrupt his trajectory and daily struggle. And during the 5 years of my doctorate, there were many challenges. It was during this period that Amara began her gender transition and several questions came with it. “I often say that the university accepted me as trans, but it did not accept me as a feminist. I felt a demand for me to be productive, but productivity within the university framework.” And Amara wanted more than an academic project. “Did they want a project that was just a free demonstration of intelligence? It's here, I passed first. But now that was no longer enough for me because my body was the target of violence, so my existence was at stake and I needed to use whatever tools I had to reverse and transform this unfair situation. So I start to make activism my priority. When I start producing in other gears and connecting gears, they start to feel uncomfortable. The university does not recognize me as productive because it is outside my area of expertise. What is my area of expertise?”, he reflects. Amara began to dedicate herself to studying trans authors, wrote a book about her experience as a prostitute And if I were a whore, wrote a book chapter about her transition process, among other texts about transfeminist reflections. He even thought about giving up his doctorate when he saw that his biggest project was something else. “I didn't give up because I knew it had great symbolism for the trans community and for the world. It was a message for society. A message that we can be in that space, we can produce knowledge, knowledge considered valid and legitimate and putting tension on what is produced there. We stop being just laboratory rats and objects of study and become subjects of the intellectual production of this country, of this society.” The message has been given. And Amara now occupies another space. The classroom. My presence in the classroom breaks with narratives constructed about trans people as characterless and depraved beings. We are not. As a literature teacher at a college, she feels she can contribute to a big change there too. “It’s a space of transformation, it’s a space I can’t give up. There I am talking to a generation of future thinkers and transformers of society. I show that we can be a reference and that they can learn from us. This breaks with the narratives that have been built all our lives about trans people as beings who have no character, have an easy life, and are depraved. We are not." For the future, she plans other books and is thinking about a post-doctorate, this time on trans literature. A job that will follow your rules. Always with your words and your name: Amara. Report by journalist Ana Ignácio, originally published on the HuffPost Brasil website.
