Including the social name of the trans population at Unicamp in all documentation generated by the Cecom (Community Health Center) service was just one of the measures adopted by the center after a general review of protocols and computerized systems and electronic medical records. The changes, however, are not restricted to bureaucratic issues. Cecom employees will participate in training on March 29th and 30th, when concepts, legal issues and forms of treatment relating to the trans population will be addressed.
“We made the adjustments and now the training will bring even more improvements”, says Cecom coordinator, Rôse Clélia Grion Trevisane. In addition to documentation and training, communication channels (such as sending emails for scheduling) and all types of approaches also start to adopt the social name of the trans person.
The coordinator also says that a Listening Space was created to be operated by Cecom professionals who work at the testing and counseling center. The intention of the space is to welcome demands and take them to coordination for proper routing. This listening space also welcomes suggestions for specific themes or programs related to the health area.
In the opinion of employee and student Ira Bernardes, member of the Unicamp Trans Consciousness Center (NCT), created a year ago, “it was interesting to see how they managed to cover a very large panorama of actions and processes”. According to the TransCenso carried out by NCT at Unicamp, there are around 150 trans people at the University.
“The changes are very important and significant, but we will only be able to really know what the impact of this is over time. There needs to be a subsequent evaluation, with deadlines, that generates an impact report and also an assessment of the demands that are coming”, analyzes Ira, who is a student of Economic Sciences and works in the Financial Section of the “Gleb Wataghin” Institute of Physics ( IFGW) from Unicamp. “I think I was the first trans employee who requested a social name in the University system”, she informs.
Continuos process
According to the Cecom coordinator, the changes, in fact, are continuous. “It’s a cultural change, it’s not a one-off. People must debate, learn and reflect to make changes. Our intention is for this to be permanent and dynamic”, says Rôse. Ira believes there is willingness to make changes. “It is important that the management responsible for the change keeps an eye on and wants to hear what trans people have to say about this service. Humanized treatment needs to listen to those being treated”, he reasons.
From Ira's point of view, protocol changes cannot ignore transphobia. “We know that we live in a society full of prejudices,” he says. The demand for changes to the service provided by Cecom arose from reports from the trans community, according to Ira. “Even though there was space on the forms for our social name, for example, people called [us] by our civil name. In other words, if transphobia occurs in the most basic service, then you completely impede the service and the confidence of the trans community, which is already marginalized, in seeking this service”, he explains.
For the server, this is the effect of systemic transphobia. “She is in relationships, she is in the normalization that a cis body is natural and a trans body is artificial.” Therefore, says Ira, additional training was necessary for these people in the service area, “because not everything is just a process, as is commonly believed in the public sector”.
In view of this discomfort, expressed by the trans community – and which had never been brought to coordination or supervision –, the employee wrote a Report Letter, something suggested by her director at the Physics Institute, Mônica Alonso Cotta, who is part of the committee of gender of the Executive Directorate for Human Rights (DEDH). “My Report Letter was very inquisitive”, highlights Ira, who signed the document as a servant, student and member of the Trans Consciousness Center.
The letter was sent on January 16, 2023. Within a month, Cecom implemented the changes. “We readily recognized [the demand] and understood that it would be more than necessary to have a new look and another care regarding all aspects, from the forms of service and approach towards the trans community to making changes to our computerized systems. That’s why we reviewed our work processes”, says the Cecom coordinator.
In January, Cecom implemented the action plan to make the changes, promoting meetings and debates. A search was carried out in all computerized systems, papers and processes. Medical certificates and electronic medical records, for example, included social and civil names. Afterwards, the necessary adjustments were made to all the documentation generated.
Warmth
According to Rogério Terra do Espírito Santo, deputy coordinator of Cecom, all the work was done with the aim of providing a better welcome to the trans community. “We also started to use neutral language in all the papers we have, such as certificates and medical records,” he says. “It is a relatively new subject. The Listening Space is exactly for that, to clarify doubts. This will be important”, says Rogério.
“We discovered that these were not complicated things [to carry out], that they were simple adjustments, but that they would make a difference. The issue of equity, respect and inclusion are the values and principles of Cecom and Unicamp. And this met these values. In one month, we took this to every type of tool, communication channel, service system. We have always served all people equally, regardless of gender and sexuality issues, but we were awakened to the need for new perspectives and forms of treatment. The work done by the team was really cool”, says Rôse.
She adds that the resolutions of the Executive Directorate of Human Rights were disclosed to all Cecom employees and that each manager was instructed to talk to their peers in their meeting spaces.
The trans trajectory at Unicamp
“We are actually wanting to de-transphobitize the University. So I think it needs to come from above, but from above listening to those below, in addition to trans people”, says Ira. Although Unicamp's Trans Awareness Center has only existed for a year, there is a longer history of the trans community's activities at Unicamp. “I think this started with Amara Moira at IEL [Institute of Language Studies], in 2018, one of the first trans doctors in Brazil. Before that, the Ateliê Trans Moras already existed at Unicamp, which to this day contributes to the training of trans people. Things take shape when organizations begin to form. Before there were few people who understood themselves as trans, which is why there were no collectives. The Core, therefore, is not a beginning. It’s already a step further”, reports the server.
Ira comments that there are already trans quotas in some postgraduate programs at the University, such as Social Anthropology and Education, but that there are no quotas for undergraduate studies. “The Center came up with the energy to get this approved. But we still don't have the legs to take more forceful actions in this regard. We are working on culture and politics, continuing the work of other trans people who at the time did what they could. We now have trans people in postgraduate studies, on staff, in undergraduate courses, so we are managing to spread our efforts to get things moving. And we have a lot of allies along the way, which is super important. We need, for example, support from teachers, like I had from my director, Mônica Alonso,” she says.
It is necessary to understand, says Ira, that there is a cisgender hegemony at the University, “and cisgenderness refuses to regulate itself”. Only from this recognition can there be change. The same happens in relation to whiteness and ableism, explains the server.
The fact that LGBTQIA+ people were strongly antagonized in the last federal government and the fact that we are the country that kills the most trans people in the world, says Ira, may have contributed to transforming the agenda into a “hot topics” (pressing topic), in her words. At the same time, the issue has been debated thanks to the elections of representatives of the LGBTQIA+ community in assemblies and chambers of deputies across the country.
“I think we are continuing our work. And we are encountering many difficulties, but also some victories. And Cecom is one of them.” The server, however, demanded an event to mark the inauguration of the Cecom Listening Space. “For people to be aware that this space exists, it is necessary to publicize it. This communication has to be formally established.”
