Escondidas no Fundo da Gruta: A invisibilidade de pessoas Trans e Travestis na cidade de Bonito/MS

Abstract

Bonito/MS, a city internationally recognized for its natural beauty, hides within its landscapes a less visible yet urgent reality: the social presence of trans and travesti people. While promoting itself as welcoming and attracting tourists due to its ecological richness, the city marginalizes certain existences, silencing them through social, political, and economic structures that deny visibility and belonging. This research aimed to understand how trans and travesti people residing in the city of Bonito/MS perceive and experience their social presence, considering the social, political, economic, and cultural dynamics that impact their visibility or invisibility. Based on authors such as Bhabha (1998), Butler (2003), Spivak (2010), and Crenshaw (1991), the study used oral history as the main methodology, combined with a qualitative approach. Seven trans and travesti individuals were interviewed, whose narratives reveal both experiences of exclusion and strategies of resistance and identity reconstruction. The data show that economic dependence on tourism reinforces cis-heteronormative standards of beauty and behavior, making it difficult for these people to access the formal job market and pushing many toward informal work and prostitution. The research concludes that invisibility is not an absence but an active production of silencing. Finally, it proposes the urgency of intersectional public policies that guarantee recognition, protection, and dignity to the trans and travesti population in Bonito/MS. By listening to and echoing historically silenced voices, this study reaffirms that these existences will no longer be hidden away in the depths of the cave. Keywords: Invisibility. Trans and travesti individuals. Oral history.