Research

Book Manuscript (in progress)

The Rainbow State: The Expansion of LGBT Institutions in Brazil

This project looks at the surprising success of the LGBT movement in engaging the state for the adoption of LGBT policy programs, policy machinery, and participatory policy councils. I analyze qualitative and quantitative data to explain how and why the movement pursued institutionalization within these three areas and the effects of this choice on LGBT representation in policy. I demonstrate that activists strategically accessed innovations in participatory democracy at the state and municipal level in response to electoral politics hostile to legislative action on LGBT rights. My analysis shows that the expansion of LGBT institutions increases the representation of transgender identities and interests in policy, long marginalized within the movement, by providing new spaces that offer legitimacy and authority to transgender activists’ demands. I further examine subnational variation in these outcomes through a comparison of the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador da Bahia. The manuscript contributes our understanding of how participatory institutions and social movements intersect to represent marginalized groups.

Journal Articles

Contending and Negotiating Identity: Trans Activism within the Brazilian LGBT Movement (2019, Politics, Groups, and Identities)

Abstract: Social movements engage in processes of identity work to construct and reconstruct collective identity. Within movements characterized by group differences, such as contemporary LGBT movements, demands for representation by marginalized group identities challenge the coalitional movement to perform hard identity work. What strategies do trans activists utilize to achieve representation within the Brazilian LGBT movement? This research argues that processes of institutionalization within the state condition opportunities and strategies for conducting hard identity work. Institutionalization within state policy leads to innovative discursive strategies for contending and negotiating group identity representation. These processes offer important strategies for the coalitional LGBT movement to address some of its most divisive internal conflicts in productive ways. This research draws upon fifteen months of fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation

Designing LGBT Participatory Policy Councils in Brazil (review and resubmit, available by request)

Abstract: Many democracies feature innovations in participatory institutions intended to link civil society and the state, empower citizenship, and improve policy outcomes. In Brazil, one such innovation is participatory policy councils for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement. As councils expand and provide new spaces for social movement activism, we know very little about the feedback effects of these state-sponsored institutions on social movements themselves. In this work, I bridge literature on social movements and participatory democracy to ask: how do policy councils alter the internal dynamics of the very movements that occupy them? I argue that the institutional design of policy councils (re)structures the established boundaries of coalitional identity movements through two primary mechanisms: council names and seat allocation. I demonstrate that, when designed with attention to group identity, councils provide opportunities for increased inclusion and representation of long marginalized transgender identities and interests within the movement and the state. This paper utilizes an original dataset of all federal, state, and municipal LGBT policy councils, fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil, and semi-structured interviews with councilors and movement activists.

Confronting Violence and Promoting Trans Citizenship through State Institutions (in progress, conference paper version available by request)

Abstract: The Brazilian lesbian, gay, bisexual, and travesti e transexual (LGBT) movement has prioritized public policy that combats homophobia since the early 2000s. In fact, federal, state, and municipal governments in all regions boast robust policy programs designed to combat violence, and more recently, positively affirm LGBT citizenship. Despite these measures, violence against LGBTs continues to rise. Multiple sources report sobering statistics that place Brazil as the most violent country in the world for LGBTs, particularly travestis e transexuais. What factors lead to more effective, and less effective, policy to mitigate violence against queer bodies and promote queer citizenship? Utilizing a mixed-methods participatory action research (PAR) approach, this project centers recent travesti e transexual activism and policymaking efforts to pressure for more effective protections for the community.

Refereed Book Chapters

2019. “Brazil’s LGBT Movement." In Oxford Encyclopedia of LGBT Politics and Policy, Oxford University Press.

2014. "Transgender Policy in Latin Countries: An Overview and a Comparative Perspective on Framing." In Transgender Rights & Politics: Groups, Issue Framing, and Policy Adoption, eds. Jami K. Taylor and Donald P. Haider-Markel. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. (with Donald P. Haider-Markel).

Book Reviews

2020. "Book Review of Political Advocacy and Its Interested Citizens: Neoliberalism, Postpluralism, and LGBT Organizations by Matthew Dean Hindman." Political Science Quarterly Spring 2020

2015. “Book Review of Networking Arguments: Rhetoric, Transnational Feminism, and Public Policy Writing by Rebecca Dingo.” Journal of Women, Politics, and Policy 36 (4): 492-494.

Other Writings

Benevides, Bruna G. and Sayonara N. B. Nogueira. "Dossier: Murders and Violence Against Travestis and Transgender People in Brazil – 2018." National Association of Travestis and Transsexuals (ANTRA) and Trans Brazilian Institute of Education (IBTE). ISBN 978-85-906774-4-4. (Translated from Portuguese to English by Sara G. York and Jacob R. Longaker)

Russo, Jane A. 2013. “From Deviation to Disorder: The Medicalization of Sexuality in Contemporary Psychiatric Classifications of Disease.” Sexuality, Culture, and Politics: A South American Reader Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Latin American Center on Sexuality and Human Rights. (Translated from Portuguese to English by Jacob R. Longaker).


2013. “Executive Summary: Teaching and Academic Program Development Working Group”. Prepared for Kansas Conference on Slavery and Human Trafficking. (Jan. 31 – Feb. 01, 2013).

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