Maurício Rodrigues Pinto is a doctoral candidate in the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology at USP (PPGAS-USP). Both his undergraduate degrees in History (bacharel and licenciado) were obtained from the same university, as well as a specialisation in sociopsychology (Fundação Escola de Sociologia e Política de São Paulo, or FESPSP) and a graduate degree (mestrado) from the interdisciplinary programme Social Change and Political Participation (USP), with the thesis Pelo direito de torcer: das torcidas gays aos movimentos de torcedores contrários ao machismo e à homofobia no futebol. He is a researcher at the Núcleo de Estudos dos Marcadores Sociais da Diferença (Numas/USP), studying dynamics of gender, sexuality, and race in sports, especially in the context of Brazilian football. He also works as a teacher in formal and informal education.
Stories of Life, Stories of the Ball: Trans Football Players and Their Insurgencies on the Field
This research project explores and analyses the personal trajectories of trans football players. While football has attained the status of a national sport in Brazil, it has historically been characterised as belonging to the world of cisheteronormative men. Through ethnographic approaches to amateur indoor and outdoor football teams formed by trans men and transmasculine people, this study aims to show how trans people have taken ownership of the game and re-signified it. The pioneering team is Meninos Bons de Bola, created in August 2016. Today, there are more than 15 transmasculine amateur teams across the country, occupying public spaces traditionally associated with cisgender and supposedly heterosexual men. The main objective is to assess the meanings these teams attribute to the practice of football, and how the presence of transmasculine bodies on the playing fields challenges gender norms and expectations associated with the sport, especially those pertaining to masculinity. Furthermore, the project aims to determine how organising and belonging to exclusive and welcoming football teams may contribute to affirmation, both politically and in terms of identity. The research takes place in a context of political disputes over rights granted to the trans population, including in sports, in view of a number of proposals designed to restrict the participation of trans people in sporting events.