DOCÊNCIAS LGBTIAPN+ NA EDUCAÇÃO BÁSICA: PERSPECTIVAS, DESAFIOS E ENFRENTAMENTOS NO CONTEXTO DE TRÊS LAGOAS- MS

Abstract

This research is linked to the Postgraduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (PPGEdu/CPTL/UFMS), to the research line Education, Diversity and Childhood, and to the Integrated Research Project EduForP (Research Group on Training and Culture in Contemporary Society) (UFMS/CNPq), developed at the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul – UFMS, in Três Lagoas/MS. This dissertation focuses on LGBTIAPN+ Teaching in Basic Education: Perspectives, Challenges, and Confrontations in the Context of Três Lagoas/MS, with the general objective of investigating whether teachers who identify as belonging to the LGBTIAPN+ community (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transvestites, transsexuals, intersex, asexuals, and pansexuals) in the municipal education network of Três Lagoas/MS face structural barriers and discrimination due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, and how this impacts their teaching practice and the school environment. The research aims to reflect on the importance of representation for these individuals in the perception of their roles and behaviors, and how this interferes in the educational context. To this end, the methodology used was oral history, understood here from the perspective proposed by Santos (2005), which recognizes testimonies as productions of memory traversed by affections, silences, and meanings. The methodological choice underpinning this study does not stem from technical neutrality, but from an ethical and political stance towards the object of investigation. Given the complexity involved in the teaching experience of LGBTIAPN+ individuals, a qualitative approach was chosen, prioritizing in-depth listening and attentive observation of the symbolic layers that permeate daily school life. The adopted path is structured as a case study with an ethnographic focus, considering that the school is more than a physical space: it is a territory of dispute, of identity construction, and also of silences. The interest lies not only in describing facts, but in understanding the meanings produced in the relationships established within educational practices. The empirical construction of the research was carried out through closed, semi-structured interviews with fifteen teachers who identified as LGBTIAPN+ and work in the municipal education network of Três Lagoas/MS. Listening to these professionals was conceived not as a mere technique for collecting or extracting information, but as an ethical and political practice of rapprochement. It was considered that the research subjects carry trajectories marked by identity disputes, resistance, and perhaps, often, institutional silences. Thus, it was essential to create a space in which their voices could emerge in their complexity, without reducing their experiences to pre-established categories. Inspired by the perspectives of qualitative research in education, the interview was understood as a dialogical encounter, in which researcher and participants jointly construct meanings. This stance sought to ensure that the teachers' voices were expressed with autonomy, density, and singularity, recognizing the power of each speech not only as empirical data, but as an expression of experiences that challenge the school and society itself. To achieve the proposed objective, we resorted to the theoretical references and accounts of Judith Butler (2001), who provides a fundamental contribution by conceiving gender as performativity, denaturalizing the binary categories that organize the school experience. Guacira Lopes Louro (2007), by challenging the curriculum and the silences imposed on dissident sexualities, broadens the reflection on the role of the school in the reproduction—and also in the possible rupture—of heteronormativity. Michel Foucault (1988), with his contributions on the devices of knowledge-power, offers subsidies to understand how the discourses circulating in the school institution operate in the regulation of bodies and the maintenance of hierarchies. Daniel Borillo (2010), in addressing homophobia as a social and political structure, and Berenice Bento (2014), in addressing symbolic violence against transgressive bodies, complete the theoretical framework that guides the critical reading of the data produced. Far from offering “raw” data, the information collected revealed marks of exclusion, survival strategies, and the complexity of existing as a dissident teacher in still strongly normative spaces. The analysis of the interviews was conducted in dialogue with authors who problematize the relationships between identity, norm, and power in the educational field. Within this context, the responses revealed the predominance of certain identity markers—such as gay men, lesbian women, and the presence of a transgender teacher—whose work acquires strong symbolic and pedagogical value. The experiences reported highlight recurring situations of prejudice, institutional resistance, and a perceived partial or absent representation. At the same time, they point to the centrality of LGBTIAPN+ teacher visibility as a formative element and to the resistance strategies mobilized in daily school life. These aspects reinforce the need for educational policies that go beyond isolated actions, moving towards structuring practices, ongoing training, and the effective valuing of diversity.