This narrative follows the lives of a group of transgendered prostitutes ("travestis" in Portuguese) in the Brazilian city Salvador. Travestis are males who, at an age as young as ten, adopt female names, clothing styles, hairstyles and linguistic pronouns. They ingest massive doses of female hormones and inject litres of industrial silicone into their bodies to create breasts, wide hips and large thighs and buttocks. However, no travesti identifies herself as a woman, moreover they regard any male that does so as mentally disturbed. The text analyzes the ways that travestis modify their bodies, explores the motivations that lead them to choose this particular gendered identity, and examines the complex relationships that they maintain with one another, their boyfriends and their families. Also examining how they earn their living through prostitution and discussing the reasons that prostitution for most travestis is a positive and affirmative experience.
Arguing that transgenderism never occurs in a natural or arbitrary form, the text shows how it is created in specific social contexts and assumes specific social forms, suggesting that travestis may distill and perfect the messages that give meaning to gender throughout Brazilian society and possibly throughout much of Latin America.
I had to read this book for my Sex and Culture class this semester, and unlike some books I've had to read for Anthropology classes this wasn't dry, it was actually really well written and very interesting. You get a feel for the travestis and the life they lead everyday, and while they say how happy they are and how much they love what they do, you still can't help but feel for them in some way. Whether it's how they have boyfriends who will pretty much only stick around as long as the goods and cash keep flowing, family that will have nothing to do with them if the travesti cannot supply them with goods and cash as well, to all the problems they face due to harrassment. Getting to read about Kulick's experiences in staying with and getting to these women in Brazil sheds quite a bit of light on not only a subculture of Salvador, but also on the culture itself in all the ways that travestis in a sense adhere to certain aspects of a moral code that that of the dominant culture does as well. Such as with their views on changing ones sex, to homosexual couples (mind you, they're homosexual, but their boyfriends are heterosexual), what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in anthropology, gender studies, and anything of the like.
