SÃO
PAULO, Brazil — As a young boy in Brazil’s heartland, Carol Marra
watched her parents politely correct strangers who said what a pretty
daughter they had. In her teenage years, she coveted the boyfriends of
her female classmates and tried out androgynous outfits, dutifully
changing back into a young man’s clothes in her car before returning
home.
Now
a favorite among Brazil’s growing class of transgender models, Ms.
Marra, 26, has become a star. She filmed two mini-series for major
Brazilian television channels, is starting a lingerie line, and was the
first transgender model to walk Fashion Rio — considered a top national
runway event — and also the first to pose for Revista Trip, a Brazilian
culture magazine that features female nudes.
Her
popularity points to striking, if precarious, gains in Brazil’s popular
culture for Ms. Marra and her small number of peers. In a country that
publicly celebrates its mixed-race and multicultural heritage, Brazil’s
cosmopolitan capitals like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have become
places where crossing gender lines is increasingly accepted. Still,
transgender models themselves say Brazil is also in many ways a deeply
conservative country with strong religious forces that can create a
hostile environment for its gay and transgender population.
A Brazilian Model’s Transformative Role
Carol Marra is leading a new group of transgender models who are stepping into Brazil’s mainstream fashion industry.
“They
say Brazil is a liberal, progressive country, but it’s not really like
that,” said Ms. Marra, as a stylist curled her long dyed-blond hair in
the upscale Jardins neighborhood of São Paulo before a television shoot.
Ms.
Marra herself has become a success story for a rising number of
transgender models who, like her, migrated from more remote regions to
São Paulo, considered the most important fashion hub of South America.
“When I arrived, I immediately felt the difference,” said Melissa Paixão,
22, who moved here at age 19. She was born Robson Paixão in Belo
Horizonte, a more traditional city in Brazil’s interior. As a teenager,
she made extra cash posing as Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn in a
store there and, she said, she drew stares on the street, which she
attributes less to prejudice than to being a six-foot-tall woman.
Relative newcomers like Ms. Paixão, Camila Ribeiro
and Felipa Tavares have gotten runway and catalog work in the national
fashion market. Ms. Ribeiro walked in the Fashion Business show in Rio
for Santa Ephigênia, a classy women’s wear brand. And Ms. Paixão will be
in the coming catalog of Walério Araújo, a Brazilian designer who is
known for flamboyant styles and has dressed Brazilian celebrities
including singers like Preta Gil and Maria Rita.
The
transgender models say that their experiences bear out the idea that
progress in gaining social acceptance has been uneven despite the
anything-goes image the nation projects. The country’s gay and
transgender movements were stunted during the military dictatorship that
steered the country from 1964 to 1985, years when similar movements
were taking root in other countries, scholars of gay rights here say.
“That’s Not My Daughter”
Carol Marra says she did not grow up thinking she would be a model.
Gender-bending
has a long history in Brazil; public cross-dressing peaks each year
with the pre-Lenten Carnival celebrations. The participation of
boisterous men in women’s clothing and crude makeup is as much a
tradition as samba competitions.
Drag
shows by transgender and gay performers became a fad in Rio nightclubs
in the 1950s and ’60s, and in subsequent decades some transgender women
began using hormonal treatments and silicone to feminize their bodies,
according to James N. Green, a historian and the author of “Beyond
Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Brazil.”
Brazil has also increasingly become supportive of gay rights. São Paulo hosts one of the world’s largest gay pride parades, and since 2010, the Brazilian judiciary has upheld gay couples’ rights
to civil unions, adoption and marriage. But a proposal to distribute
antidiscrimination kits in public schools was defeated by the government
after evangelical members of Congress complained of its sexual content.
And violence and prejudice against the gay and transgender populations remain high. Grupo Gay da Bahia,
a prominent gay rights group, reported 338 killings nationwide of gay,
lesbian and transgender people in 2012. It is not possible to verify the
motives for every crime, but many victims show marks of torture and
multiple wounds, leading the group to believe such killings are often
hate crimes, Luiz Mott, the anthropologist and historian who founded the
group, said.
Even
as transgender models gain prominence, Mr. Green, the historian, argues
that their success — while it is positive for those individuals — has
little political value.
“I
think it means that men who look like women, as long as they are
submissive to men and focus on beauty and clothes, don’t threaten
anything,” he said. “It fits into men’s fantasies.”
Some models see themselves as highly political while others say they are eager to be accepted as a woman like any other.
Roberta Close,
who posed for Playboy in 1984, is considered Brazil’s first transgender
model and cultivated a devoted male following with her girlish
aesthetic. The actress Rogéria, born Astolfo Barroso Pinto, is a household name in Brazil after years of appearing on Globo TV.
Still, the proportion of transgender models is tiny considering the vast fashion industry here.
Brazil’s
most internationally recognized transgender model — Lea T, born Leandro
Cerezo and the son of a former soccer star, Toninho Cerezo — posed for a
2010 international Givenchy campaign.
She also walked São Paulo Fashion Week with supermodels like Gisele
Bündchen and Alessandra Ambrosio, who are known for their work for
Victoria’s Secret.
Débora
Souza, a modeling agent who represents Ms. Marra, said, “A trans model
is interesting because she can get two crowds: both the feminine crowd
and the gay crowd, which is the main group of the fashion world.”
But
once they venture beyond the confines of fashion, the models have
enjoyed less success. Ms. Ribeiro, 24, who comes from the Amazonian
industrial city of Manaus, has posed for Candy, which calls itself the
“first transversal style magazine.” But she said that despite being
welcomed by fashion and artistic, experimental or avant-garde
publications, transgender models had found it difficult to branch out
into mainstream consumer magazines, catalogs, trade shows and ads for
products with broad appeal. Ms. Marra also said her own renown in the
fashion world has not carried over to other realms. She said she has
been inundated with vulgar messages from men on her Facebook page, often
asking her how much she costs for a night.
“I never wanted to be an activist of the cause,” Ms. Marra said. “I thought I was a woman like any other.”
But
she became more outspoken after receiving messages from transgender
individuals in more remote corners of the country, like a prostitute in
Manaus who saw her on TV and asked for guidance.
Ms.
Marra also complained that she did not receive fair treatment in
casting, saying that she was assigned only to roles of transgender
women.
“The
majority of actors are gay and they can play a heartthrob,” Ms. Marra
told her director at her mini-series shoot. “Why can’t I play a maid, a
secretary, a tree?”
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