Sexuality & Culture

DOI 10.1007/s12119-016-9350-5

ORIGINAL PAPER

For Fun: (De) Humanizing GisbertaThe Violence

of Binary Gender Social Representation

Maria Manuel Rocha Baptista1

Rita Ilse Pinto de Loureiro Himmel1

 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016

Abstract In 2006, Gisberta Salce Junior died inside of a pit, in an abandoned

building, after being tortured for 3 days by a group of teenagers, in Porto, Portugal.
Gisberta was a transgender woman who had moved to Portugal from Brazil in the
1980s. In this paper, we explore the media coverage of her death as an illustrative
case of existing social representations of gender, resulting in two main findings: that
even those who are seen as communities of support and recognition perpetuate
discourses of gender binary norms, and that the only apparent possibility to
humanize and transcend these norms is materialized in artistic performance and
production, which allows for a more emotional connection to the subject as a
human individual rather than a mere transgression. The analysis of articles about
Gisberta revealed that there is a very strong social representation of gender as a
binary, consisting rigidly of female and male poles. As such, the social represen-
tation of those individuals who transgress this binary, embodying alternative per-
formances of gender, as was the case with Gisberta, is reduced to their sexuality,
their embodiment of something other than the gender binary. Different perspectives
were identified: media, the courtroom, the teenagers, LGTB activists and the arts.
Through this analysis and division, it was possible to conclude that these binary
norms are embedded to the extent that they permeate even the discourses of those
who tend to speak for trans people, in such a way that it seems almost impossible to
escape them, with one powerful exception: that of artistic expression, which seems
to be the only topos from which true recognition is achieved. This case is an extreme

& Maria Manuel Rocha Baptista

mbaptista@ua.pt
Rita Ilse Pinto de Loureiro Himmel
rita.himmel@ua.pt
1
Departamento de Lnguas Literaturas e Culturas, Universidade de Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro,
Portugal

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example of the necessity to transcend gender norms and allow for recognition of
individuals as such.

Keywords Gender norms
Social representations
Media
Performativity

Transgender

Introduction

On the 22nd day of February 2006, 46 year old Gisberta Salce Juniors body was
found inside a pit, in an unfinished building, in the city of Porto, Portugal. She was
violently tortured for 3 days by a group of 14 teenage boys, from 13 to 16 years old,
after which she was thrown inside the pit where she drowned. One of the boys ended
up confessing to a teacher, who alerted the authorities. According to the media,
during the trial the teenagers claimed they committed the acts for fun and had no
intention to murder her.
Gisberta was a transgender woman, who had moved to Porto from Brazil in the
1980s. The teenagers were institutionalized in centers for at risk youth (most of
them in Oficinas de S. Jose, a catholic institution). They were convicted for qualified
offences against the physical integrity, attempted dead body desecration or failure to
act with sentences to institutionalization in a semi-open educational center for
periods ranging from 11 to 13 months. Gisbertas family vocally condemned the
sentences for not being strong enough.
This paper aims at identifying and exploring existing social representations
present in the main Portuguese newspapers coverage of the case, through the
perspectives of the media, the authorities, the teenagers, LGBT activists and the
arts, by analysing the articles published about it by the four most read newspapers in
the country. This analysis resulted in two main findings: that even those who are
seen as communities of recognitions end up reproducing the same representations
which create and sustain norms that ultimately kill those who transgress them; and
that the only topos which allows for true recognition is that of artistic expression.
Gisbertas is an extreme case which stirred up a lot of debate around the issue of
gender and violence, mainly extreme violence against those who dont seem to fit
hegemonic gender norms. As such it caused the issue of gender to be brought up in
the media, evidencing existing social representations about it.
The case of Gisbertas death was largely reported in the media, and continued to
be in the agenda in subsequent moments such as the trial, other events in relation to
the catholic institution, LGTB marches and protests, the release of a music album by
a famous singer with a song dedicated to Gisberta, the performance of a theatre play
about the case It was also reported from different perspectives, from hard
descriptions of police and court reports, to the issues of juvenile delinquency and the
centre where the teenagers lived, as well as from the perspective of LGTB activists,
who, often criticized the way the media portrayed Gisberta. Although all of those
perspectives diverged, hegemonic social representations were identified: the
representation of gender as a binary made of two opposing poles: male and female,
and the consequent reduction of Gisberta as being reduced to her gender identity,

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even when it came to the social representations promulgated by those who present
themselves as communities of support and recognition: activists. Through the
analysis of the articles it was possible to identify one powerful exception to this, one
topos of true recognition, which opens up the possibility of real humanization, and
that is the place of artistic expression, of creation, in this case, incorporated in music
and theatre.

Identity and Gender

The issue of gender is at the core of identity issues, due to the paradigmatic
function of sexual difference in relation to other axes of exclusion (Hall 1996, 15).
Gender norms and the hegemonic discourses which prevail are based on the very
extreme polarization between feminine and masculine. Such norms and discourses
have been and are being contested both through the practice of performances of
gender that challenge these norms by individuals that do not conform to them, as
well as theoretically.
One of the theorists who is more active about challenging the root of the issue of
gender is Judith Butler, who claims that gender should be undone altogether.
According to Butler, gender is complexly produced through identificatory and
performative practices, and [] [it] is not as clear or as univocal as we are
sometimes led to believe (2004, 212). As such, the categorization according to
heterosexual gender norms comes into question, as its symbolic existence in society
and resulting hegemonic discourses and social representations remain highly
powerful.
These discourses have an enormously powerful effect in producing gender
norms. Norms which establish who, in a society, is recognized and who isnt, who is
real and who isnt, who will be legible and what and who will not (Butler 2009,
iii). Those who challenge gender norms, by performing gender in a way that doesnt
fit in this structure, often fall in the category of the unrecognized.
When one performance of gender is considered real and another false, or when
one presentation of gender is considered authentic, and another fake, then we
can conclude that a certain ontology of gender is conditioning these
judgments, an ontology (an account of what gender is) that is also put into
crisis by the performance of gender in such a way that these judgments are
undermined or become impossible to make (Butler 2004, 214).
These gender norms are produced and reproduced in discourse, and, as such, on the
level of discourse, certain lives are not considered lives at all, they cannot be
humanized; they fit no dominant frame for the human, and their dehumanization
occurs first, at this level. This level then gives rise to a physical violence that in
some sense delivers the message of dehumanization which is already at work in the
culture (Butler 2004, 25), violence which often targets transgender people exactly
because of this dehumanization.
What happens, when hegemonic discourses and social representations dehuman-
ize people because they transgress these gender norms, is a violent negation of

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peoples humanity, and, consequently, more than oppressed, people are seen as
unintelligible (Butler 2004, 216217).
This violence has its most extreme materialization in the murder of the
(represented as) unreal, as happened with Gisberta in 2006. When the gender norm
is consisted of a rigid binary, its transgression causes such a level of anxiety based
on the rigid belief that a sense of world and a sense of self will be radically
undermined if such a being, uncategorizable, is permitted to live within the social
world (Butler 2004, 34), that the transgressing body is negated altogether.

Social Representations

These gender norms that Butler refers to, are embedded into social representations
of gender. Social representations are theories constructed by individuals in social
interaction about social objects, that seek to construct a stable, predictable world
out of the diversity of individuals (Moscovici 2000, 55). Very directly put: the
purpose of all representation is to make something unfamiliar, or unfamiliarity
itself, familiar (Moscovici 2000, 37).
Social representations are pervasive to our whole social experience, and there
simply is no communication that is not embedded in them, we are never provided
with any information which has not been distorted by representations superim-
posed on objects and on persons (Moscovici 2000, 21). They are formed by two
main processes: objectification and anchoring.
Objectification refers to the process through which information and beliefs about
a given object are selected and decontextualized, so as to fit into the existing social
norms, and these new messages are naturalized (Vala 1993). It is an active process
of materializing an abstraction, it is to reproduce a concept in an image (Moscovici
2000, 49), to fill it with substance. But it is also always a choice, since it seems that
a society makes a selection of those to which it concedes figurative powers,
according to its beliefs and to the pre-existing stock of images (Moscovici 2000,
50). In this case, the abstraction of the concept of gender is filled with the very clear
images of male and female polarity, and these binary is naturalized into
unquestionability.
Anchoring is a process which happens before and after objectification: it
constitutes the process of drawing on reference points that already exist in the
individuals or societys framework for processing this new social object, and, after
objectification, it constitutes the interpretation code that is created by a network of
meanings and allows for the anchoring of the unfamiliar (Vala 1993, 360362). It is
the act of classifying and naming something, in order to transform them from
something unknown into something familiar. Of course this naming and classifi-
cation is all but innocuous. Neutrality is forbidden by the very logic of the system,
where each object and being must have a positive or a negative value and assume a
given place in a clearly graded hierarchy (Moscovici 2000, 43). This classification
is always made in relation to a prototype, in the case of gender, the male/female
binary prototype, in relation to which social objects are regarded as conforming to,
or diverging from, the norm (ibidem, 45).

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The incapacity to see what and who is obviously present is explained by the fact
that we operate based on a pre-established fragmentation of reality, a classification
of the people, and things which comprise it, which makes some of them visible and
the rest invisible (Moscovici 2000, 19).
Social representations form the basis for communication, but they are not always
hegemonic. Factors such as ideology form the basis for the anchorage of new social
objects, as well as their objectification and subsequent network of meanings, so
these are interpreted and rearranged according to previously existing hegemonic
norms inside a certain group. However, although some social representations are
more or less debated and contested (emancipated or polemic), one can speak of
hegemonic representations, representations that are dominant for a long period of
time, and which are produced and reproduced by the mainstream mass media (Vala
1993, 379).
Gender norms can be regarded in this context, as hegemonic social represen-
tations which largely and for a long period of time regarded gender from an
essentialist perspective, which claimed that gender is a truth that is somehow there,
interior to the body, as a core or as an internal essence, something that we cannot
deny, something which, natural or not, is treated as given (Butler 2004, 212), and
which is also binary.
So when someone who doesnt fit into this binary is encountered, the social
representation makes the other person disturbing, because they are like us and yet
not like us (Moscovici 2000, 38).

Portrayals of Gisberta

To identify existing social representations, the main Portuguese newspapers

coverage of the case was examined, the stories which better illustrate social
representations in each of the elements involved in the case were selected, and their
content was analysed in order to exemplify the reproduction of these representa-
tions. The following perspectives were established: the media, the courtroom, the
teenagers, the LGTB activists and the arts.
This division of perspectives allowed for an exploration of dominant represen-
tations, based on a rigid gender binary that is unable to recognize any possible
transgression, which ultimately led to two main findings. The first is that even
LGTB rights movements tended to adopt a discourse based on this dominant social
representation. The second is that the only instances, the only topos, where
acceptance and recognition seems to be possible is through the arts. In this section,
each of the perspectives will be presented and explored and the relations between
them established.
In order to do so, firstly, the four main paid daily news media outlets under the
category General Information in Portugal were identified: Correio da Manha,
Jornal de Notcias, Publico and Diario de Notcias (APCT 2014). A search was
conducted in each of the outlets website for the keyword Gisberta, with no time
frame limits. This search resulted in 440 results: 75 in Correio da Manha, 82 in
Jornal de Notcias, 208 in Publico, 75 in Diario de Notcias, in all cases, between

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2006 and 2014. The search results were scanned for relevance, and the stories which
better illustrated the phenomenon of social representations of gender were selected.
This selection resulted in 20 in-depth analysed articles. One of the search results
references a feature story published on Notcias Magazine (a news magazine from
both Jornal de Notcias and Diario de Notcias) which was nominated for the 2007
European Journalism Prize about the case, so it was also included.
When producing news stories, the media mirror some of the existing (and non-
existing) politics of recognition in relation to gender. These are present in language:
is it a he or a she; in formal identity elements such as a passport or citizen card: is
the name on it Gisberta or Gisberto (or Gisberto Gisberta), is there an F or an M
written on the paper; in the politics of the body itself: had she undergone surgery,
did she have male or female sexual organs; was Gisberta a transvestite, a
transsexual, transgender? A clear example of questions raised by Judith Butler,
who underlines the importance of vocabulary as a result of lack of recognition: Are
there forms of sexuality for which there is no good vocabulary precisely because the
powerful logics that determine how we think about desire, orientation, sexual acts
and pleasures do not admit of certain modes of sexuality? (Butler 2009, iii).
There is an attempt to fit Gisberta into existing norms, existing social
representations of gender, and to be compared to what is seen as a true
representation of gender.
So, when referring to forms of sexuality (and those who embody them) who dont
fit into the powerful logics, the media often resort to anchorage in existing shared
representations, and objectify them, naturalizing these ideas: where in the male/
female binary is this person, are they fully female, fully male, or in the process of
becoming either side, how do they fit with the objects that correspond to the binary.
Sometimes they draw on discourses of performativity in the theatrical sense, the
show business language, Gisbertas identity is also anchored in references such as
marginalization (prostitution, disease, drugs). As for the objectification, it also
happens by selecting what is seen as (the only) relevant information about Gisberta:
that she is transgender (anchored in concepts such as transvestite, transsexual,
homosexual), and the rest of her is neglected. And so, it is easy to fit her into the
social norm of the gender binary: she is a transgression of it, a marginal, a
precarious object.
There are also attempts to actively combat the stigma and acknowledge her
precarity, making the people and their problems noticeable, recognizable. Some
media discourses fight this lack of vocabulary by forcing the recognition of Gisberta
as an individual and as a transgender person. However, these discourses are rare
and, almost always, impregnated with the same social representation of gender as a
binary.
As such, even though the story of Gisberta is approached through different
lenses, one social representation is transversal: that of Gisberta contrasted with the
gender binary, and, thus, reduced to her sexuality. Whether shes used as a symbol
for transphobia, a freak of society, a victimher identity is always equated to her
sexuality, her embodiment of the transgression of the gender norm.
A norm which is visible in almost all the discourses, with few exceptions. Her de-
objectification, i.e. her portrayal as a more complex individual, who is worthy

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recognition, occurs only through art, such as the song Balada de Gisberta and the
theatre play Gisberta, since the artistic performance forces an emotional
connection to the person. But it also occurs, more weakly and to a lesser extent,
in the media, mainly through the voice of opinion makers. As for the gender binary,
there was only one article identified in which this representation is put into question.
In the following subsections, the social representations identified in the various
perspectives will be presented, and, finally, the two main findings regarding the
communities of recognition and the arts will be explored.

Social Representations in the Media

In practically all the media coverage on the issue, information about Gisberta is
selected and contextualized in a way in which she becomes her sexuality. With few
exceptions, Gisberta is the transsexual, the murdered transsexual, the
transvestite, or even the HIV-positive tuberculous transsexual. Aside from often
using transvestite and transsexual as synonyms, which was openly criticized by
LGTB activists, and which distinguishes some news outlets from others, in the end,
not only is the gender norm always present in the media, but this individual is
reduced to her sexuality. Her sexuality becomes her identity, inside of which she is
incarcerated. We clearly identify the anchoring of social representation in the
concept of gender as binary, and of Gisbertas identity enclosed in her sexuality.
The dehumanization of Gisberta is visible, for example, in the use of quotation
marks when using her feminine name (Gisberta), the omitting of her name
altogether (she becomes simply a transvestite, a transsexual, a victim), although
the intensity of these representations varies according to the media outlet, they are
latent and identifiable almost transversally.
The gender as binary social representation can also be seen in the use of feminine
and masculine articles (o and a) as well as the feminine and masculine versions
of her name (Gisberto and Gisberta), the underlining of the importance of sexual
organs in the definition of someone as trans, the issue of the national identity card,
and formal institutions that define someone as either female or male, and constant
referrals to femininity and masculinity.
These representations are present both in news articles and op-ed pieces by
opinion makers. And we can see them even in those who, to some extent, try to
combat social representations that are the source of violence. Here we will illustrate
this with a few examples, focusing mainly on articles that somehow make an effort
to humanize the case, while always falling into the same social representation.

Op-eds

One example of an op-ed, titled Mundo-cao ou mundo humanizado?(Dog-eat-dog

world or humanized world?), by Joao Baptista Magalhaes (identified as a Master of
Philosophy), clearly shows this representation of the gender norm as well has
Gisberta as being reduced to her sexuality, even while trying to underline her
humanity. The author firstly refers to Gisberta as, a human being, equal to all of us
in dignity, which, in itself, already presupposes an us different from her. He

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describes her path from Brazil, into prostitution and marginalization, referring to
several other factors than her gender identity such as isolation from her family,
professional instability and lack of understanding from society. However, again,
gender is presented as a binary: some bio-psychological factor made him opt for the
female sexuality [] he became a transsexual; and her transsexuality is seen as the
cause for her death: The homophobic or transphobic violence manifested by these
youngsters is none other than the expression of an exacerbated of the irrationality of
adults who hate homosexuals or transsexuals (Magalhaes 2006).
In one small piece in Correio da Manha, the author actively challenges the
assumption that the sexuality was what caused Gisbertas death (although the author
refers to homosexuality), and points to other precarity factors, presenting it as an
attack on a precarious member of society: I saw a wolf pack in the aggressors and,
in the victim, the fact that she was poor, lonely and sick (Correio da Manha 2006a).
The piece points out that the fact that the court didnt see the victims sexuality as
the cause for the attack is no cause for reassurance: It is true that the persecution of
homosexuals is abject and strong. But it would upset me to underline that detailas
big as it is (and it is big), because the noise ended up as a curtain which hid a
crime of many against one weak man (ibidem). So, although it still reproduces the
gender as binary social representation, it somewhat challenges the idea that Gisberta
was nothing more than a transgression of the sexual norm. She was a precarious
member of society, and she was vulnerablethats what motivated the attacks,
making it a much more relatable and even humanizing account.

News Articles

Another example of a piece that tries to go beyond the police facts but ends up
reproducing the same social representation is the feature Ele, ela, ele (He, she,
he), by Ricardo J. Rodrigues, which was written about Gisbertas friends,
transgender women who knew her. This article was nominated for the European
Journalism Prize in 2007.
Again, it is the identification of Gisberta as her transgression, as well as her
friends, that guides the whole narrative. In it, there are several references to social
representations of gender as a binary, such as this quote by one of the interviewees
who described Gisberta when she arrived in Portugal: She was a beautiful woman,
you didnt notice anything masculine(Rodrigues 2007).
The issue of gender as performativity is also very present in this piece, but
presenting the trans world as a fake, exaggerated performance of the true female
femininity: There is an exaggerated glamour, which is almost caricature-like, in the
whole scene. The gestures and the voice placement, the clothes and beauty care, the
ritual of going out, the rehearsed details, are way beyond the normal female vanity.
They reveal a wish of stardom, of painting life in neon pink (ibidem). This passage
is reminiscent of Butlers argument that performativity is present in gender
altogether, and there is not such a thing as a true and a copied gender performance,
unlike what the article seems to suggest. [C]ategories like butch and femme were
not copies of a more originary heterosexuality, but they showed how the so-called
originals, men and women within the heterosexual frame, are similarly constructed,

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performatively established. So the ostensible copy is not explained through

reference to an origin, but the origin is understood to be as performative as the copy
(Butler 2004, 209).
Some sections of the article evidence all of these social representations together:
the existence of a gender binary and the presentation of transgressions as false
performativity, and the reduction of Gisberta to her gender identity: [Gisberta] was
also a woman imprisoned by a male id card, in a body retouched by silicone. They
were companions of the same clandestine world [] Gis friends, pioneers of
transsexuality in the Invicta [a nickname for the city of Porto], found in Porto the
stage and hiding place for their inevitable flamboyance. [] They all feel that the
simple fact that they are alive is a test to their endurance. [] A tough-guy game,
disguised as female fragility. That is the life of the transvestite (Magalhaes 2006).
The gender as binary sexual representation, and performativity, are perfectly
summed up in this passage, which illustrates the view of gender as made of two
opposing sides, masculine on one pole and feminine on the other, in a very pictorial
way: Wanda shows up with masculine clothes and short hair, she presents herself as
Berto, says that being a transvestite is nothing more than a profession. Katty is the
exact opposite. Brown skirt and leather hat, and a lady of high societys jacket.
Agripina is in the middle: long black hair and long painted nails, ambiguous jeans
and a little beard on her face. I feel like a woman, act like a woman and think like a
woman At this point, the waiter arrives: Good afternoon, Mr. Victor, a coffee as
usual?. The objectified image of the masculine, on the one side, the feminine, on
the opposite side, and the unrecognizable ambiguous in the middlethis is the
hegemonic social representation of gender.
Another example of an article which tries to go beyond the police and court
reports and talk to sources who knew Gisberta personally, is titled Gisberta e
recordada como uma mulher belssima, cordial e docil (Gisberta is remembered as
an extremely beautiful, cordial and docile woman) (Diario de Notcias 2006).
However, the attempts to tell her story are all made through the lens of her
transgenderness, and how valid she was because of her femininity: The news
announced the death of a man, but it is in the feminine that the associations which
socialized and helped the transsexual: She was a lady, says Raquel Moreira, from
Espaco Pessoa (ibidem).

Exceptions in the Media

Although the presentation of Gisberta as nothing more than her sexuality in the
media is practically hegemonic, there are a few exceptions. These are mainly
present in op-eds by opinion makers, but also in regular news articles.
One example of a piece which tries to de-objectify Gisberta, is the op-ed titled O
martrio de Gisberta e os clones de Alex (Gisbertas martyrdom and Alexs clones)
by Nuno Pacheco. In this piece, the author condemns the teenagers view of
Gisberta as an object, as well as the fact that no one noticed the torture before her
actual death: For the young aggressors, Gisberta was a torture object similar to the
flies whose wings kids pull out, trampling them afterwards, or the lizards whose tails
are removed and who are then crushed by stones (Pacheco 2006).

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Her extreme dehumanization by the attackers is condemned, but she is still

presented mainly as a transgression of the norm. The author claims that the priest
who runs the institution should look for the reasons of the crime perhaps in himself
and the way in which he, apparently inefficiently, transmits the catholic values of
respect of love for others, whether theyre your neighbor or Gisberta. There is a
condemnation of Gisbertas dehumanization, of the differentiation between Gisberta
and a neighbor (Pacheco 2006).
There is also an example of a feature story which tries to recover Gisbertas story
as an individual, rather than merely a transgender, Ya, um dia fomos bater na
Gisberta (Yeah, one day we went to beat up Gisberta) by Ana Cristina Pereira. The
story is based on an interview with one of the teenagers, and highlights her suffering
and personal history in a way that goes beyond her sexuality and addresses her
complexity as a human being. The piece adopts more literary tone, focusing on
emotional aspects and describing events in a more illustrative way.
The journalist tells Gisbertas story, ever since she moved to Portugal, including
past successes and health problems. Her connection with one of the boys is also
highlighted, she took care of him when he lived with his mother on Coelho Neto
street, packed with prostitutes, and the former transsexual star was already sunk in
drugs and was a prostitute in Goncalo Cristovao and Santa Catarina streets (Pereira
2009). The relationship with some of the boys is described in its vulnerability, and
Gisbertas openness towards the teenagers: The boy started visiting her on his
lunch break. With him, came others. Gis opened her life up to them. And her life, in
that moment, was a cocktail of disease, misery, solitude. Other aspects of her life
are also highlighted, such as the difficulties of being a foreigner: Without a work
contract she was unable to renew her visa. The author also recovers the story of the
boys, their history of exclusion and difficult life paths (how they were removed from
their families).
The same article, on the other hand, described the attacks on Gisberta, focusing
on her suffering and with a rather emotional tone: they punched and kicked her,
threw stones, hit her with sticks, while calling her tranny, faggot, whore.
And they laughed. They laughed a lot; One of the boys ordered another one to
undress her and he twisted his nose [expression which means showing reluctance].
Gisberta smelled bad and had AIDS; Gisberta cried. She cried compulsively.
During the interview with the boy, the journalist constantly asks about how
Gisberta was doing or feeling, forcing even him to acknowledge her suffering as an
individual: How was Gisberta?, Was Gisberta in a very bad state?, -During
those days, did no one panic and say: We are hurting a person? No. -Did anyone
tell you to stop?.
However, as much as the more nuanced complexity of Gisberta as a person is
present in this piece, there is one social representation that is visible: that gender is a
binary. She was born 45 years ago in the interior of Sao Paulo (Brazil). She was
born a man on the outside, a woman on the inside. She dreamt of matching her body
to her mind. She had hormonal treatments, breast implants. But she could never
advance to the operation phase which would give her a female sexual organ
(Pereira 2009).

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Most importantly, there are op-ed pieces actively criticizing the fact that her
identity has been reduced to her sexuality. One example is Paulinho e Gisberta by
Joao Miguel Tavares, in which the author draws a parallel between the story of a
schoolmate of his and Gisberta, in the way that people who transgress the sexual
norm are diminished to their sexuality. Paulinho is the diminutive version of Paulo,
and is how his schoolmate, who was quite ostensive in the exhibition of his
homosexuality, was known: the diminutive already diminished him (Tavares
2006). He is presented as someone who was insulted, teased and even hit daily,
because of teenagers extreme reaction to norm transgression: In that jungle of
doubts and hormones which is the entry into adolescence, Paulinho was not a
person. He was a faggot, a queer who existed to be beat up. He didnt have an
identitythe brutal world which surrounded him reduced everything he was to a
sexual choice. This is a clear example of an active refusal of the hegemonic social
representation, which is paralleled in Gisbertas case: The expression that served as
a war cry to the kids who, in a moment of boredom, beat her to deathlets dar
lenha [colloquialism which literally means give wood, and can be translated as
knock around] Girefers to the same refusal of humanity, to the same incapacity
to assimilate difference.
The author, however, seems to see that this violent reaction to the norm is only
expressed by these teenagers, and that the rest of society acts wrongfully in turning
their heads away, but not in actively participating in it.
In the same piece, a third connection is made to the artistic world, through the
quoting of a musical play, written in 1978 by Chico Buarque, Opera do Malandro,
in which one song Geni e o Zepelim describe a transvestite who was a victim of
physical abuse: Joga pedra na Geni/Joga pedra na Geni/Ela e feita para apanhar/Ela
e boa de cuspir/Ela da para qualquer um/Maldita Geni (Throw stones at Geni/She is
made to be beat up/She is good to spit on/She gives it up to anyone/Damned Geni).
He ends the piece mourning the inability to break away from certain social
representations: Geni, Paulinho, Gisberta, the same line connects them in a network
of prejudice. As old as the world, and which no one seems to have the strength to
break (Tavares 2006).
The other piece which more vehemently illustrates this active rebuttal of the
social representation of Gisberta as nothing more than her sexuality is and editorial
titled Gisberta and signed by Eduardo Damaso. The article is based on a criticism
of institutions connected to the Catholic Church, and the State which finances them,
because some of them dont evolve and cling to dated educational projects.
Although the author himself refers to Gisberta as Gisberta, the transsexual
murdered by youngsters from the Oficinas de S. Jose, he finishes the article with a
central issue, which he, however, introduces in parentheses: What happened in
Porto and led to the brutal death of Gisberta is too close to human beastliness in
order for everything to remain the same. In order for the death of this person (who
was excessively identified by everyone, priests, politicians, journalists, merely for
her successive exclusionstranssexual, homeless person, drug addictand not by
her name) to not remain as a symbol of our own tragedy. Our embarrassed silence.
Of our social racism. Of our ruthless indifference (Damaso 2006).

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Social Representations in the Courtroom

Although the judges did not consider it was proven that the crime was motivated by
the sexual norm transgression, the social representations about gender are still
present in the official discourse.
The crime is described as a violent aggression towards another human being with
disregard to her humanity. However, it is also often referred to as a fun game that
went wrong. This contradiction can be seen, for example, in this excerpt from an
article about the trial: A distasteful prank/game made by youngsters who
showed contempt for human life. This is how, in the sentence reading, the judge
Carlos Portela qualified the attacks, proven in court (Mandim 2006).
This presentation of the attack as a prank/fun game highly devaluates Gisberta as
a human being. On the one hand, her sexuality is discussed in the following manner:
the panel of judges did not consider there was proof that the boys acted because of
intolerance towards the sexual options of the offended and toward the physiog-
nomic differences(Watson and Maia 2006). On the other hand, the facts that were
considered proven point to her transgression of the norm as being a central element
of the attack: they told their friends that they knew a guy with boobs who looked
like a woman [] one of them wanted to take off Gisbertas pants to find out if
she was a man or woman(Laranjo 2006).

Social Representations and the Teenagers

Where the social representations of both gender as a binary, and Gisberta as reduced
to her sexuality are most violently present is in the teenagers acts. They acted upon
existing social representations in a degree of utter crudeness, their acts were the
violent materialization of gender norms.
Although the trial was held behind closed doors, the conclusions allow us to
evaluate these representations in their behaviour. They acted upon these existing
representations, by showing both an attraction (even a sexual attraction) and, at the
same time, a vicious repulsion for the transgression of the norm embodied by
Gisberta. It is a clear example of what Butler explains as the motivation behind
killing those who transgress the gender norm:
The person who threatens violence proceeds from the anxious and rigid belief
that a sense of world and a sense of self will be radically undermined if such a
being, uncategorizable, is permitted to live within the social world. The
negation, through violence, of that body is a vain and violent effort to restore
order, to renew the social world on the basis of intelligible gender, and to
refuse the challenge to rethink that world as something other than natural or
necessary (Butler 2004, 34)
Their violent attraction/repulsion towards Gisberta as a transgression of the norm, as
the embodiment of a possibility that they want to embrace and, at the same time,
destroy, can be illustrated in accounts such as these: They went to the place to see
a person who had breasts and looked like a woman, for curiosity. They threw stones
at her that day and punched and kicked her(Correio da Manha 2006b).

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One of the boys knew Gisberta since he was 5 years old, and the teenagers even
used to help her, preparing meals which they took to the place where Gis slept
(Correio da Manha 2006b). So there was even a relationship of friendship, which
quickly turned into aggression, a change for which the Juvenile Court did not find
an explanation.
Another issue which illustrates the attraction/repulsion attitude of the youngsters
was Gisbertas alleged raping with a stick, which the court decided could not be
proven, but which was brought up by the prosecution. One of the teenagers told the
panel of judges that Gisberta was moaning on the floor after being attacked with
kicks and with stones and sticks. They made fun of her, for being transsexual.
They even wanted to see if she was man or woman. [] The doctor said it wasnt
certain whether Gi was raped with a stick (Correio da Manha 2008).
In the previously mentioned feature piece by Ana Cristina Pereira (2009), the
torture acts are described in more detail. Here the dehumanization of Gisberta from
the perspective of the teenagers is even more evident: they punched and kicked her,
threw stones, hit her with sticks, while calling her transvestite, faggot, whore.
And they laughed. They laughed a lot (Pereira 2009). The dual attraction/repulsion
is seen in the act of undressing, and allegedly raping her, and then, at the same time,
attacking, insulting and being repulsed by her. When, as mentioned above, one of
the boys was asked by the journalist about the suffering of Gisberta, the reaction is
always the same: -During those days, did none of you panic and say: We are
hurting a person?No.

The Gender Norm in the Activists

Perhaps the most unexpected reproduction of social representations about gender

and sexuality was made by LGTB activists, and thus these findings consist of one of
the two main findings of this paper: that even those who are seen as and present
themselves as communities of recognition reproduce those norms which allow for
extreme cases of violence such as this to exist.
Judith Butler argues for the importance of communities of recognition, in which
happiness and fulfilment are possible, which works as well to ward off violence,
racism, homophobia, and transphobia (Butler 2004, 216). However, what if those
who are presented and present themselves as this community are themselves
reproducing the same representations which create and sustain norms that ultimately
kill those who transgress them?
Of course there is a strong criticism of media discourses by the LGTB activists,
which tend to use concepts such as transvestite and transsexual interchangeably, but
the whole representation of gender is still the basis for the activists discourse.
When one is talking about gender, it is impossible not to refer to the centrality of
sexuality, but, still, Gisberta is always presented as only that, not as a fully
humanized member of a sort of LGTB community, but simply as a symbol of
transsexuality.
From the analysis of the discourses of LGTB activists in the media, it is possible
to conclude that they, themselves, also reduce Gisberta to her sexuality (even if for

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different purposes), and they, too, tend to present gender as a female-male binary. In
this case, Gisberta is her sexuality, she is only defined as a transsexual/transgender
woman, a symbol for sexual identity. The problems associated with trans violence
are often seen as resolvable if sexual organ change surgeries and alteration of
identity cards and passports are made possible, i.e. if the person fully assumes
their gender as either male or female, the in-between is also seen as unacceptable.
The violence is viewed as residing in societys phobias motivated by ignorance
about gender identity, not in the binary gender norms themselves. For example,
there is a recurrent claim for, aside from the prohibition of discrimination according
to gender identity in the Constitution, the importance of allowing transsexual
people to alter their documents according to their assumed gender (Silva 2006), as
well as of the sexual organ surgery. This, of course, is an important element in
recognizing alternative performances of gender, but the possibility of not falling
into the binary at all is always presented as a problem.
In virtually all LGTB activists discourses, there is never the mentioning of the
type of perspective on gender advocated by Butler. The success of recognition and
consequent fulfilment of the transgender person is seen as whole only with the
complete transformation into one of the extremes of the gender binary: mainly in
relation to transsexuals, because they are easily identifiable and their ID presents a
sexual identity which is different from their bodyand the State Does not allow
for name change without genital surgery(Silva 2006).
The activists continuously voice their criticism of media coverage of the issue,
mainly because of the interchangeable use of transvestite and transsexual,
homophobia and transphobia, sexual orientation and gender identity (Pereira
2006). But even questions about terminology and concepts have as an underlying
basis the necessity of a binary gender, in which a person is either male, female or in
transition to either side, they should never stay somewhere in between: Among the
LGTB protestors, the use of the expression transgender caused an intense
argument. Criticizers said, yesterday, that the term refers to an indetermination
encompasses transsexuals with our without modified genitals -, whereas the pure
transsexuals are those who underwent the genital surgery (Araujo 2006).

Exceptions in LGTB Activism

After the analysis of the medias discourse about Gisberta, only one article was
found quoting an activist, who makes one very important point about combatting the
gender binary social representation. It is also the only glimpse into a possibility of
undoing gender identified in all the analyzed discourses.
The article is titled Morte da transexual Gisberta em documentario europeu
(Death of transsexual Gisberta in European documentary), and addresses a
documentary which aired in 2006 in an Austrian TV Channel, made by Austrian
activist Jo Schedlbauer with Portuguese activist Jo Bernardo (Cancio 2006)
The main source in this article is Schedlbauer. Regarding the way in which the
unspeakable population speaks and makes its claims (Butler 2009, xiii), the
activist in this article calls for the agency of the precarious, and criticizes the lack of
a real community of recognition: Most of the time, gay and lesbian organizations

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decide for us [transgender population] without asking us anything. They have to

understand that we have our own agenda(Cancio 2006).
He stresses that the inclusion of homophobic hate in the Penal Code is not
enough, since The fact that people dont know what a transgender isa
denomination which includes transsexuals, (those who have undergone sex change
operation), transvestites and people who are neither man nor womanmakes it even
more important for transphobia to be mentioned. This is the first time that the
possibility of people being neither man nor woman as a permanent rather than a
transitional state is even mentioned. And this idea is further developed by this
activist.
His criticism of the gay and lesbian activists who speak for transgender people is
connected exactly to this. According to him, on the one hand they dont represent
the transgender agenda, and, on the other, by claiming to be LGTB and often
making transgender people the protagonists of actions such as Gay Pride parades,
making a medial choice which highlights the paradox: in the struggle against what
Schedlbauer names the rigid rules of gender, the transgender are the one who are
most exposed and least protected. This criticism of the rigid rules of gender is a
criticism of the social representation of gender as a binary.

Art

After analysing the social representations in each of these perspectives, the most
blatant attempt to humanize Gisberta as an individual is identified as being made
possible through art, and this consists of the second main finding of this article.
Personifying Gisberta or her family allows for the possibility of empathy, which is a
main function of artistic creation. Gisberta was a source of inspiration for artistic
pieces such as the song Balada de Gisberta by the Portuguese singer-songwriter
Pedro Abrunhosa (performed by him and with a version performed by Brazillian
singer Maria Bethania) and the theatre play Gisberta by Brazillian writer Eduardo
Gaspar, performed by Portuguese actress Rita Ribeiro.
In both cases, Gisbertas gender identity is still a very important element, and the
malefemale binary is also, to some extent present, but it is not the central issue,
Gisberta as a person is the issue. By putting the individual in the center, the focus
becomes the person, not the transsexual, not the norm, not whether she had female
or male genitals, but her story as a person.
Pedro Abrunhosas song is written in the first person, from the perspective of
Gisberta, which, in itself, is an exercise in empathy which is often only allowed
through artistic creation. Presenting her as someone who has suffered (Eu nao sei se
a noite me leva, Eu nao ouco o meu grito na treva, E o fim vem-me buscar), but who
has also loved (Escrevi o desejo, Coracoes que ja esqueci) and seeks love (E o amor
e tao longe), who has desires and dreams (Vesti-me de sonhos), humanizes her.
As for the play Gisberta, written by Eduardo Gaspar, it is a monologue by
actress Rita Ribeiro, written from the perspective of Gisbertas mother. This, in
itself, creates a possibility of recognition of her as a human. The mother does not
regard her child as reduced to her sexuality, she is simply her offspring. Even

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though the gender identity is a central theme in the play, it is shown from an
empathetic perspective, because the symbol of the mother is often associated with
unconditional love.
The play allows for a humanization of a cold police case, as is argued in this
review of the performance, which provokes the responsibility of not forgetting the
injustice and give a past, and a reality, to the coldness of a police case turned into
news (Costa 2014).
Actually, the author of the play himself justifies the need to write it with the
dehumanization of Gisberta which he identified in the media: In those articles, and
in those he found afterwards on the Internet, Gisberta was only the life she had in
Porto, first as a star in cabarets and botes, and then as the too present ghost of a
story of violence and homophobia. Not one newspaper, not one tv channelat least
as much as the Brazillian director and playwright could find outinterviewed the
mother who he was forced to imagine, a mother in a white dress and slippers
walking around the house (Costa 2014).
And the emotional connection with the audience was also a result of this artistic
creation, as the actress states: I think it is a show that allows for the recognition,
and recognition sets us free (Nadais 2014).
In this synopsis, the gender identity issue is present, and the need to accept
Gisbertas sexual identity is a central part of the play, it is contrasted with the
immeasurable love of a mother for her child: In Angelinas discourse, which, on
the one hand denounces her disappointment, shame and ignorance, there is the
tenderness that reveals the immeasurable love of this mother for her son []
Angelina will also assume her part of the guilt for never being able to fulfill her
little boys most important desire: to be called Gisberta (Morato 2014).

Violence Embodiments: Gender Norms and Objectification

After analysing the content of the selected articles published in various media
outlets regarding Gisberta, we can conclude that there are clearly two hegemonic
social representations: that of gender as being a rigid binary composed of male and
female, and, as a consequence of this, the social representation of Gisberta as not
more than a norm transgression. The latter is to some extent contested and debated,
but the former is firmly established, since only one example has been identified of
its criticism. This allowed us to establish two main findings: that even those who are
seen as communities of support and recognition, such as LGBT activists, perpetuate
discourses of gender binary norms, and that the only apparent possibility to
humanize and transcend these norms is materialized in artistic performance and
production, which allows for a more emotional connection to the subject as a
human individual rather than a mere transgression.
Even those who are supposed to form communities of recognition and support
produce and reproduce this social representation of gender. And, often, even
activists assume a position of speaking FOR rather than TO or WITH the
unspeakable population. It is a clear example of how those who speak and those

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who are spoken of are forced into an identity matrix that they have not chosen and
over which they have no control (Moscovici 2000, 47).
We can then conclude that gender is socially represented as a rigid binary, in
which all of those manifestations which dont fall into either side are either
completely rejected or seen as temporary transitional stages. This falls in line with
Judith Butlers observation: If a person opposes norms of binary gender not just by
having a critical point of view about them, but by incorporating norms critically,
and that stylized opposition is legible, then it seems that violence emerges precisely
as the demand to undo that legibility, to question its possibility, to render it unreal
and impossible in the face of its appearance to the contrary (Butler 2004, 35).
This social representation of transgression is anchored in deeply rooted concepts
of masculinity and femininity, and objectified by reducing those who somehow
challenge this notion to unrecognizability, ridicule or undergoing a transition. As
Moscovici puts it: when otherness is thrust upon us in the form of something not
quite as it should be, we instinctively reject it, because it threatens the established
order (Moscovici 2000, 39).
Aside from the official entities, journalists, the police, the courts, it is noteworthy
to assess that the organizations and its members who should be in the best possible
position to understand Gisberta, are exactly in the same place as the former. There is
no other place from which it is possible to regard Gisberta that the topos of art, there
is only hope of expression of reality through creativity, through a move away from
rationality and embracing an emotional component.
Undoing gender, i.e., allowing for the possibility of erasing the binary structure
of gender norms, and consequently not recognizing those who challenge it, means
that we must learn to live and to embrace the destruction and rearticulation of the
human in the name of a more capacious and, finally, less violent world, not knowing
in advance what precise form our humanness does and will take. It means we must
be open to its permutations, in the name of nonviolence (Butler 2004, 35).
These are interesting findings which obviously do not exhaust this topic. Further
research should be carried out about the conditions according to which art can be the
place of another discourse, and further deepen the possibility of it coming out of
non-hegemonic LGBT movements.

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