Homophobic and transphobic Bullying Dispositive: Voices in an educational Community

Abstract

The right to equality of children and adolescents, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity, has been acknowledged by various international initiatives. The growing interest in homophobic and transphobic bullying (HTB) by different social agents suggests the formation of a governmental device. This research explores the HTB by means of identifying effects, discourses and practices through narrative productions with the educational community, one of the agents that make up this device. The results indicate that in the educational community: a) the hegemonic discourses related to the HTB are reproduced ; b) the characteristic elements of the HTB are identified in an axis of visibility - invisibility; c) the heteronormative gender-sex system and the gendered binary categories are naturalized in the educational space, while mechanisms of power / knowledge are developed in order to eradicate the effects of this same system; and d) the agency and responsibility for intervention on the HTB are assigned to adult education agents. The study proposes affectivesexual diversity as a paradigm of "distributed or non-localized difference" that offers an alternative to heteronormative sex-gender hegemonic discourse.