On Wednesday, September 25, Unicamp will hold the first of two public hearings to discuss the implementation of quotas for transgender people in its entrance exams. The event, which will begin at 13:5 p.m., will be held in Auditorium 22 of the University's School of Medical Sciences (FCM), and is open to anyone interested in discussing with the academic community the points that justify the need to create an institutional policy of affirmative action for the trans population in Brazil. The second hearing will take place on October XNUMX.
The meeting was organized by a working group (WG) established in May 2024 with the aim of studying the issue at Unicamp. This group emerged from demands that arose during last year's student strike and its first objective was to survey the policies already in place at other Brazilian universities.
Based on this data, the group is currently working on developing a proposal that is viable for both the University and the trans movement, following a trend already observed at other universities, such as the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA).
According to the director of the Permanent Commission for Entrance Exams (Comvest) at Unicamp, José Alves de Freitas Neto, responsible for coordinating the working group, the document to be forwarded will propose that the selection be made based on the National High School Exam (Enem).
This meets the demands of the Trans Consciousness Center (NCT) at Unicamp, which is part of the WG and is organizing the public hearings. “The goal of these hearings is to give visibility and a voice to trans people. It is very important to listen to the demands of people who will potentially be served by this policy and to signal that there is a future and a horizon for them within universities,” says the professor.
The public hearings are intended to provide an initial dialogue on the topic with the public. After these discussions, the WG intends to take this debate to Unicamp's departments, allowing the internal community to understand what is being proposed.
At the end of this process, the document produced by the working group will be submitted to the University Council (Consu) for voting. “This is all part of ensuring that the community is prepared, with qualified information and, therefore, as free as possible from prejudice, about what we have been doing with this working group,” explains Unicamp anthropology professor Regina Facchini, who collaborated with the group’s discussions.
The draft currently being finalized was based on the nine quota alternatives already established in federal public universities to discuss both access and permanence of trans people at Unicamp.
In addition to members of Comvest, intellectuals from the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH), Pagu – Center for Gender Studies, the Center for Trans Consciousness (NCT) and the Office of the Rector, as well as the Gender and Sexuality Commission of the Executive Board of Human Rights (DeDH), were involved in drafting the document. “This was a very intense, voluntary work involving the collective construction of a policy that seeks to embrace the trans community in Brazil,” comments student Solluá Borges de Souza.
More information about the hearings can be found on the Núcleo de Consciência Trans Instagram profile: @nct_unicamp.
Access to education
The demand for the creation of quotas for the transgender population at Unicamp comes from the recognition that there is a social and historical process of construction of inequalities in relation to this community. According to Souza, who is studying for a doctorate in anthropology, there is a history in Brazil that is permeated by several perspectives when it comes to trans people. The first of these would be the fact that these bodies are subjected to violence that goes beyond the levels of humanity. The second is the lack of media representation of trans people living possible lives. And the third is the relationship between pleasure and danger, which makes the bodies of transvestites sometimes something dangerous, sometimes something pleasurable.
Furthermore, despite several legislative advances in relation to the rights of LGBTQIAP+ people, such as access to the social name in the Enem and public examinations, these are achievements that have come about through bodies such as the National Council of Justice or the Superior Federal Court (STJ) and never through the proactivity of the legislative constituent government. It is clear, therefore, that there is a great deal of inertia in Brazil regarding the protection of the rights of this population and a lack of laws that support their demands. “This is also a factor to be taken into consideration when we think about adopting quotas,” says Souza.
“We are talking about the history of people who, since early adolescence, had to leave home due to family abandonment, who experienced violence involving social interaction at school. So there are many trans bodies who don’t even finish high school. When we talk about access to university, it is still a very small percentage of people who will be able to do so, but these people still have the right to access it. We are trying to balance this unequal balance between people who do not live this reality and this population that is extremely stigmatized,” he explains.
It is worth noting that the affirmative action policy currently developed does not only involve access to university, but also retention programs to allow incoming students to complete their courses.
Due to their history of being expelled from their families, trans and transvestite people need to seek alternative ways of generating income from an early age in order to survive without the support of their parents, especially in the university environment. For this reason, undergraduate student Luara Souza points out that talking about affirmative action for trans people involves talking about access to university housing and quality food, as well as monitoring programs with psychologists and psychiatrists.
“This issue is also very symbolic. We also want to be able to have ongoing monitoring, not just in extreme moments, when we talk about suicide or when we talk about the extreme violence that occurs in these bodies,” recalls Luara Souza, who is a co-founder of the NCT. “It is very important that these retention policies are implemented. Unicamp, in this sense, has some paths to be traced. Today, we still do not have a scenario that conditions this retention to flow, so that these bodies can remain at the university.”
From another perspective, Professor Isadora Lins França, from the Anthropology Department at IFCH, states that the implementation of quotas is not only important for the transgender population, but for the entire University, which benefits from greater diversity in its student and research staff. França points out that Unicamp already has quota models for trans people in several postgraduate programs, which has already made it possible to see the difference that their presence makes in the community and in the production of knowledge that is more in tune with societal issues.
“We believe that the more diverse the university community, the better the knowledge we are able to produce. When trans people enter university, they enter with different perspectives, bringing different bibliographies, renewing the dialogues we have in the context of academic knowledge,” he observes. “Just like ethnic-racial quotas, the Indigenous Entrance Exam, and quotas for people with disabilities, these are all policies that make our academic environment more diverse and plural.”
