feature: self-described “afrotransfeminista” activist-writer-academic maria clara araújo speaks on prioritizing transgender acceptance and safety in academia



A few years ago, Araújo had dropped out of high school. “From an early age, the school setting was hostile to me,” she told Carta Capital. Araújo knew that she was, what others considered to be, different. She recalled, at age 6, wanting to be the pink Power Ranger, and when she started wearing scarfs to school, at age 14. There, at school, Araújo’s queerness regularly made her subject to ridicule, disenfranchisement, and diminishment, often at the hands of school administrators.



In Brazil (and many other countries), transgender folx are severely oppressed and end up being pushed to the fringes of society. Institutionalized workplace discrimination prevents most trans and queer individuals from being employed in “traditional” work settings. Often times they are restricted to domestic service, hairstyling, gay entertainment, and sex work. 



”The image of these women is also conditioned to prostitution. They can not handle the situation living at school, the family puts them out of the house, then there is no formal labor market that meets these girls, so prostitution becomes a means of survival, not an option.” Sex work for trans women in Brazil is particularly dangerous, as Brazil has the highest number of murders of trans people in the world. There, transgender life-expectancy is astonishingly low, at age 30.



In the face of these harsh realities, and despite her painful past experiences with education, Araújo earned a spot at the Federal University of Pernambuco, where she is pursuing a pedagogy (teaching) degree and working to improve trans safety and acceptance in academia.