Perhaps, at various times in your life, you have not questioned yourself about your sexuality and the way in which it can interact with discourses of domination and stigmatization, as well as with other intersectionalities such as race/ethnicity and gender. Our bodies seem to have a biological order pre-defined by culture, but we forget that all processes are culturally constructed. What social norms are we talking about? Who elaborated and continues to reiterate these norms? Me? You? .... Without seeking to immediately answer these questions, this autoethnographic text¹1. Raimondi GA, Moreira C, Brilhante AV, Barros NF. A autoetnografia performática e a pesquisa qualitativa na Saúde Coletiva: (des)encontros método+lógicos. Cad Saude Publica. 2020; 36(12):e00095320. doi: 10.1590/0102-311X00095320.
https://doi.org/10.1590/0102-311X0009532... in the debate format of the article entitled “Are we preparing future physicians to handle situations of violence related to gender and non-heterosexual sexualities? Report of a diagnostic educational ‘experience’”²2. Cruz BA, Querichelli AFQ, Uback L. Estamos preparando os futuros médicos para atendimentos de situações de violência com enfoque em gênero e em sexualidades não heterossexuais? Relato de uma “experiência” educacional diagnóstica. Interface (Botucatu). 2023; 27:e220630. doi: 10.1590/interface.220630.
https://doi.org/10.1590/interface.220630... invites you to think about which society we are willing to build.

2011. Clerkship, or also known as Compulsory Supervised Clerkship in the Medical Course’s, in the Internal Medicine area. Stage of “Infectious Diseases” (ID). During the various bedside activities and discussions of clinical cases of patients hospitalized in the ID, I was taught to improve my clinical knowledge in relation to infectious and parasitic diseases. On another ordinary day of this process, laughter echoed from the “Doctors’ Room”. As I approached, the “joke” was related to the fastest way to know if a person was gay. Obviously, I, as a gay white cisgender man, recoil in fear of being outed³3. Sedgwick EK. A epistemologia do armário. Cad PAGU. 2007; (28):19-54. doi: 10.1590/S0104-83332007000100003.
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-8333200700... . I enter. The answer to the “joke” or “clinical knowledge” of a case on the ward was directly, for those (mostly heterosexual white cis men) who laughed, laid bare in the result of a urinalysis. “He can only be gay, because those who have intestinal bacteria in this test are those who have anal sex”. “Laughter”, again. For me, one more alert⁴4. Raimondi GA, Teixeira FB, Moreira C, Barros NF. Corpos (não) controlados: efeitos dos discursos sobre sexualidades em uma escola médica brasileira. Rev Bras Educ Med. 2019; 43(3):16-26. doi: 10.1590/1981-52712015v43n3RB20180142.
https://doi.org/10.1590/1981-52712015v43... . My fear: suffering violence and/or as a friend of mine later translated it, social death⁵5. Borrillo D. A homofobia. In: Lionço T, Diniz D, organizadoras. Homofobia e Educação: um desafio ao silêncio. Brasília: LetrasLivres, EdUnB; 2009. p. 15-46..

Upon hearing this stated from a professor nationally known as a reference in the field of Infectious Diseases, doubts about a person’s sexuality cease to exist, depending on the result of an exam. The exposure is not only about being gay, but there is also a pejorative exposition⁵5. Borrillo D. A homofobia. In: Lionço T, Diniz D, organizadoras. Homofobia e Educação: um desafio ao silêncio. Brasília: LetrasLivres, EdUnB; 2009. p. 15-46.. One moment... how did you learn about sex, sexuality and gender?

For many cisgender white men, sex is taught and learned, for the most part, in the “whorehouse”. It is the “initiation ritual of many men”. For my older cousins, sex is taught and learned, mostly, in pornographic materials. As an object, the hegemonic perspective of machismo on women is reiterated, through this “teaching of sexuality”⁷7. Butler J. Problemas de gênero: feminismo e subversão da identidade. 11a ed. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira; 2016.,⁸8. Preciado PB. Testo Junkie: sexo, drogas e biopolítica na era formacopornográfica. Ribeiro MPG, tradutora. São Paulo: N-1 Edições; 2018..

And what does all this have to do with what I experienced in my medical training? The reiteration of disobedience from the “norm”⁹9. Foucault M. História da sexualidade I: a vontade de saber. São Paulo: Graal; 2005.. Hegemonic “norm” that in a historical and cultural way is reiterated by men, whites, cisgenders, heterosexuals, in the majority. Reproducing a colonial logic of domination¹⁰10. Pereira PPG. Queer decolonial: quando as teorias viajam. Contemp Rev Sociol UFSCar. 2015; 5(2):411-37.,¹¹11. Quijano A. Sobre la colonialidad del poder. 2013; 1(8):1-5. doi: 10.32870/cl.v0i8.2792.
https://doi.org/10.32870/cl.v0i8.2792.... , my professor taught me and my colleagues to reproduce in our practice a conduct considered “professionally appropriate”¹²12. Raimondi GA, Moreira C, Barros NF. Corpos que (não) importam para a prática médica: uma autoetnografia performática sobre o corpo gay na escola médica. Campinas: Ed. Pontes; 2022.. By keeping other existential possibilities in place of the comic or reiterating the comfortable position of “I didn’t learn anything from that”¹³13. Paulino DB, Rasera EF, Teixeira FB. Discursos sobre o cuidado em saúde de Lésbicas, Gays, Bissexuais, Travestis, Transexuais (LGBT) entre médicas (os) da Estratégia Saúde da Família. Interface (Botucatu). 2019; 23:e180279. doi: 10.1590/Interface.180279.
https://doi.org/10.1590/Interface.180279... , violence is reiterated, in which LGBTQIA+phobia presents itself as an expression of the guardian of the borders of hegemonic sexuality⁵5. Borrillo D. A homofobia. In: Lionço T, Diniz D, organizadoras. Homofobia e Educação: um desafio ao silêncio. Brasília: LetrasLivres, EdUnB; 2009. p. 15-46..

2022. Remote meeting of a group of university professors. I wait for other people to come in so we can start the meeting. A colleague beside me comments:

[...]

2023. According to Rosangela Malachias⁶6. Malachias R. “Mimimi”? Não! Desigualdades, vulnerabilidades, corpo e comunicação. In: Prata N, Pessoa SC, organizadoras. Desigualdades, gêneros e comunicação. São Paulo: Intercom; 2019. p. 147-59., it is understandable that the term “mimimi” is used by certain people belonging, normally, to hegemonic groups to refer to other subjects who “whin” and “victimize” themselves by problematizing ethnic, racial, and gender inequalities and vulnerabilities. When remembering the tears shed in my existence in the face of the various wound suffered by being a gay man (even if cisgender and white), I cannot ignore the pain I experienced and experience when hearing the “mimimi”. It is inadmissible to assume the comfortable position of neutrality and believe that it is “all right” in speeches and actions that reiterate a hegemonic power over bodies. Cruz et al.²2. Cruz BA, Querichelli AFQ, Uback L. Estamos preparando os futuros médicos para atendimentos de situações de violência com enfoque em gênero e em sexualidades não heterossexuais? Relato de uma “experiência” educacional diagnóstica. Interface (Botucatu). 2023; 27:e220630. doi: 10.1590/interface.220630.
https://doi.org/10.1590/interface.220630... , invite us to think about an “institutionalized training policy” which, in my view, represents the systematic and intersectional study and practice of Human Rights, which can compose a set of compensatory and/or reparation public policies⁶6. Malachias R. “Mimimi”? Não! Desigualdades, vulnerabilidades, corpo e comunicação. In: Prata N, Pessoa SC, organizadoras. Desigualdades, gêneros e comunicação. São Paulo: Intercom; 2019. p. 147-59.. In this sense, we need to question the “universal subject” (heterosexual cisgender white man) of our practices in order to break with the duality that establishes a “standard/norm” and a “non-standard/norm”¹⁵15. Jesus JG. Operadores do direito no atendimento às pessoas trans. Rev Direito Práxis. 2016; 7(15):537-56. doi: 10.12957/dep.2016.25377.
https://doi.org/10.12957/dep.2016.25377... . We need to reflect on which society we want to build. If we understand that it is necessary to expand existential possibilities based on the logic of respect for diversity and the right to live, on an intersectional basis, we have to name the multiple forms of violence that we experience and/or reproduce in our society in order to transform our existence. It is necessary to feel the discomfort, to think of a transgressive education¹⁶16. Hooks B. Ensinando a transgredir: a educação como prática da liberdade. São Paulo: Martins Fontes; 2013. that has empathy and compassion, as mentioned by Cruz et al.²2. Cruz BA, Querichelli AFQ, Uback L. Estamos preparando os futuros médicos para atendimentos de situações de violência com enfoque em gênero e em sexualidades não heterossexuais? Relato de uma “experiência” educacional diagnóstica. Interface (Botucatu). 2023; 27:e220630. doi: 10.1590/interface.220630.
https://doi.org/10.1590/interface.220630... .

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