Love, shame and guilt: a political analysis of emotions in the family context of transgender men

Abstract

This article analyzes the emotional and emotive discourses linked to the experiences of members of trans men’s families during the gender transition process. The discussion refers to the results of ethnographic research using different methodological strategies in three cities in Northeast Brazil, two of which state capitals, one a small town, between 2020 and 2023. Initially, the article addresses family member’s expressed feelings of shame and guilt associated with transgenderism, considered with respect to gender hierarchies and the hegemonic role that a “good mother” is expected to play. Next, the analysis explores how these “negative” feelings give way to love, in our interlocutors’ statements. Love emerges in family discourses as a justification for accepting and supporting gender transition, becoming a constitutive part of kinship relationships. Furthermore, love is used as a political mobilization strategy in an activist group composed mainly of mothers of LGBTQIAPN+ sons and daughters. Analysis of these political rhetorics of emotion demonstrate that hegemonic conceptions about motherhood, linked to love and care, open the possibility for these people to act in the face of gender and sexuality norms. The article therefore contributes to understanding the way in which emotions are activated as constitutive elements of the means and limits of individual and collective agency, in the sense postulated by Saba Mahmood, demonstrating the complexity of the political potential of emotions in the face of normative relations of subordination and power.