Writing on feminist and queer movements

Prevention of gender violence and working against LGBT prejudices: the intersection between collective action and institutional dynamics

Fernando André Rosa – ISCTE-IUL, CIES, PT

Maria José Magalhães – FPCEUP-CIIE; CIEG, PT

Yolanda Rodríguez-Castro — UVigo, ES
Rita de Oliveira Braga Lopez — FPCEUP, PT

This study compares two public campaigns against LGBT prejudices: i) “Dislike Homophobic  Bullying”, by CIG, the Portuguese Governmental mechanism for citizenship and gender equality; ii) The performative action "Exorcise the Pathologization", included in the Portuguese branch of the international campaign Stop Trans Patologization 2012. Using critical discourse analysis and visual analysis, we conclude that gender violence is a cross cultural and structural problem embracing a wide range of forms of violence against women and LGBT people in Portugal. It is grounded in a dominant culture where gender is socially constructed as polarized, complemented with the performativity of discourse, the intersectional and institutional power relations underlying social practices. We demonstrate how public campaigns against homo and transphobia can contribute for the des-naturalization of gender divide and gender regime and thus for the change of the cultural ground of gender violence. However, without deconstructing gender they are at risk of reproducing gender hierarchies.

Keywords: Gender violence; homophobic violence; critical visual analysis; feminism; agency, heteronormativity.