Abstract
In this work, we analyze court decisions resulting from the preliminary injuction in writ ADPF 527, which specifies where transsexual and transvestite women will serve their prison sentences. The first court decision, handed down in 2019, only authorized the transfer of transsexual women to female prisons, and rationalized the non-inclusion of transvestites from a distinction between these gender identities based on the presence of the biological organ that characterizes male bodies: the phallus. While this authorization was later extended to transvestites, the underlying legal justifications behind the measure reveal hegemonic perceptions about transvestites and, consequently, about body, sex, and gender. Stemming from post-structuralist perspectives, dialogues with critical racial theory, and comparisons between public policy regulations, we seek to understand the theoretical and practical implications that such perceptions bring to the field of Law, especially regarding the rights of the imprisoned transvestite population and prison public policies, which we call, in the light of our critical exercise, the prison cistem, alluding to the cis-heteronormativity presupposed in the discursive matrix of law.
Keywords:
Body; Gender; Transvestism; People in deprivation of liberty