A Psychosocial Analysis of LGBTQIA+ Activism in Brazil

This dissertation examines how LGBTQIA+ activists in Brazil respond to political violence and create forms of resistance, conscientization, and social reparation. The research is grounded in Liberation Psychology and transfeminism and approaches oppression and resistance as intertwined processes shaped by historical and political conditions. The dissertation consists of three studies. The first study focuses on experiences of discrimination and resistance among Black travestis and trans women in the city of São Paulo. It analyzes how cumulative violence, institutional neglect, and gendered racial exclusion produce harm, while collective organization, gender-affirming spaces, and aesthetic reinvention function as practices through which participants seek to secure safety, recognition, and continuity of life. The second study develops the Model of Psychosocial Harm and Trauma (MPHT) as a theoretical contribution to Liberation Psychology and gender and sexuality studies. The third and principal study is a participatory research project with LGBTQIA+ activists from São José dos Campos. It examines how queer activists understand and respond to political violence in a context marked by cisheterosexism, racism, economic exploitation, and religious fundamentalism. Our analysis suggests that activism is simultaneously a site where harm accumulates and where relative psychosocial uplift becomes possible. By recognizing activism as a site of knowledge production, this research underscores the importance of integrating activist knowledge into policy, pedagogy, and community practices in support of structurally grounded, affirming, and collectively oriented responses to systemic violence.