The (im)possible purity: medicalization and activism in travesti and transsexual experience

This article discusses strategies of purification to overcome the symbolic exclusion of travestis and transsexuals from the spectrum of human intelligibility, as they break heterosexual matrix. Based on ethnographic observation conducted at LGBT movement and-particularly-trans movement meetings in Brazil, as well as interviews with self-identified travesti and transsexual activists, two purification paths considered most relevant are analyzed: the medicalization and politicization of "trans" identities. Additionally, a third possibility of relative purification is highlighted: glamour as a way of overcoming adversity.

travesti; transsexual; medicalization; activism; purification