Gênero e sexualidade em grafitos latrinários de banheiros masculinos em escolas públicas

Abstract

The present dissertation, Gender and Sexuality in Latrine Graffiti Found in Male Bathrooms of Public Schools, undertakes an analysis of cis-heteronormative textual productions inscribed within male restrooms of public high schools and Reference Schools in Secondary Education (RSSE), examining the discursive mechanisms that constitute what is here referred to as latrine discourse. The primary objective of this research is to identify the ways in which distinctions between gender and sexuality are negotiated and reaffirmed through latrine graffiti, particularly in manners that exclude individuals with dissident sexual orientations. To that end, this study adopts an interdisciplinary theoretical framework grounded in Cultural Studies (Cuche, 1999; Endo, 2009, among others), Linguistics (Soares, 2020; Vieira, 2018; Souza, 2013, among others), Queer Theory (Butler, 2018; Foucault, 1988; Moita Lopes, 2002; Melo, 2024), and Discourse Analysis (Maingueneau, 1997, 2004, 2008, 2020; Orlandi, 1987, 2001, 2007, 2013; Amossy, 2011; Magalhães & Cavalcante, 2007). Among its specific aims, the study seeks to examine the discursive strategies employed by (re)producers of sexually violent discourse directed at gender and sexuality dissident bodies. In this context, particular attention is paid to how normative discourse operates within power dynamics that both enable and sustain social exclusion. The findings reveal the presence of disruptive linguistic practices that, while challenging the normative function of male restrooms, simultaneously reproduce gender hierarchies. These spaces, marked by their heterotopic condition (Foucault, 2013) and their designation as “nonplaces” (Augé, 1999), are understood as both subordinated to—and capable of subverting—the school as an ideological state apparatus (Althusser, 1985). Within this framework, the exclusion of dissident sexual orientations and the reinforcement of gender binaries materialize through cis-heteronormative graffiti, which operate as mechanisms for the reproduction of male domination (Bourdieu, 2012). The discourse analysis undertaken herein reveals the presence of violent discourses against dissident bodies, articulated through verbal and non-verbal elements that reinforce and perpetuate hegemonic masculinity, while contributing to the symbolic and material violence directed at bodies marginalized by gender and sexual dissidence in the institutional spaces under investigation.