Original subtitles

They caught me red-handed.

They approached me...

The cops approached me. "Freeze!" And so on...

"Hands on your back!"

Then they were startled.

"I'm a man, I'm trans.”

"I did notice something different."

INVISIBLE MEN

Friends called me to go to a nightclub. So I went to have fun.

I left the place at 5am to go to work.

I saw two men coming after me.

They started to beat me up.

They confused me with two guys who had robbed them.

Then I said "I'm a girl" to ease the situation.

Because of prejudice, it got worse and they beat me up even more.

Then I said "If it was me, call the police."

Then, two girls came and said I had nothing to do with that.

They got scared because they beat me up

and kept on accusing me to make me feel frightened.

So I ended up going to jail.

The cops thought I was a man.

So they beat me up. I did a forensic examination.

I felt the gun barrel on my forehead.

And he pushed me at the wall.

-I was really frightened. -I was arrested by GOPE,

the Police Special Ops.

They said, “Men on one side, women to the other.”

I went to men's side.

It was dark and they couldn't see me properly.

He grabbed a wooden chair like this, closed it

and hit this guy in the back.

"Holy shit!

I won't withstand something like that.”

That guy was so buff, he was hit and fell.

They cop said: "Get up! Aren't you a man?"

I thought: "Soon it'll be my turn."

Then he went one by one.

Oh, God! My number was coming up.

Then a woman said: "No, she's a woman."

I said: "I'm a man!" And my girlfriend: "Shut up!"

"I'm a man!" "Then you'll get hit as a man!"

He hit me with the chair, but not as hard. I didn't fall.

Then another woman came and said:

"No! Afterwards, there'll be a forensics examination."

"Then go to the women's side!"

"No, I'll stay here!" "What?" And he slapped my ear.

And he pulled me by the ear and put me there.

Then I went to the Police Station. I was really stressed out.

"Put this guy back there!"

The left me with no shirt, just a top.

My mom went there, saw me and talk to them,

but they were totally strict because I looked different.

So it was tough, I got sick.

When I got there, the first thing that really bothered me,

the frisk.

That's when...

I argued saying I wanted to be frisked alone.

I didn't feel at ease taking my clothes off in front of the girls.

They put a mirror under your...

under you and you have to squat to see if there's nothing in you.

"Lady, look at me. Do you think I'd put something inside me?"

"I don't want to know. You're like everyone else here.

Squat ten times!"

At the time, it was a female police chief.

You'd lay down and she'd stand on top.

"What's the color of my undies?" Blue, pow! Black, pow! Red, pow!

Whatever color you said, you'd get beaten anyway.

They didn't give me a chance to talk.

I could only talk in my first hearing eight months later.

The judge talked to me and the alleged victim

and saw that the story was totally nonsense,

so she allowed me a defense hearing.

My witness went and I was released.

There was a gender norm embedded in our background as a human being.

And this gender system causes several issues.

It causes sexism.

It's set to annihilate all that's different or that rises against it.

Identifying this Gender system, we can also identify some individuals

who will escape this present gender norms and will transgress it.

And then we talk about transgender people.

It's those people who are all the time transgressing this norm.

As you begin to understand a bit of the universe, the world,

you know you don't fit in.

It's always difficult to walk around the streets, and scary.

Since very young, "She's a lesbian and so on."

So I've always stayed home a lot.

At the first day of junior school, you must use a girl's uniform.

My mother came to dress me and I said I wouldn't use it.

She said: "You'll use it! You're a girl!"

That moment was a great trauma for me.

I understood my transsexuality in a very harsh way,

when that small-town society came to tell me

that I couldn't be who I am.

Many transgender men and women and transsexual leave school

because they can't withstand transphobia.

So the pressure on me was really strong,

but I held on and managed to get to college.

The prison system becomes aggravated

because of a dichotomy established

between what's health and security and justice within this space

As it was a space design to deny people of their freedom,

all the other rights become secondary.

And health is not apart from that.

It's not different from education, culture and leisure.

So they're arrested, deprived

and then we look for different alternatives to keep people alive.

Usually, people who had their freedom denied

they were also denied other rights and assets throughout their lives.

So we see these transgender people marginalized

within these control devices.

One of these powerful control devices

is the prison system.

It determines which bodies are approved or not.

It's unbelievable the amount of transgender men in jail.

In my cell, there were two, in the next, three more.

The transgressive body always expects something to happen,

that it will occupy this space someday.

That's a personal experience, I've been in the prison system.

When I got there, I was already pretty big.

I was really fit, and handsome as hell.

The women inmates didn't know I was transgender,

they thought I was a prison guard,

so they were all quiet.

When they were told I was a transgender man,

everyone went nuts, I even had a beard.

"Dude, there's a man inside the jail!"

It was insane. All those women went crazy:

"Come here, get in here, for the love of God!"

People desire you in there.

I really went to town, I had three women in a single cell,

not mentioning the others from other cells.

The women fight for you, really.

They ganged up to beat him up, because he was cheating,

lying to the girls.

He can't hit the girl he's cheating on,

so the girls would gang up on him.

All I said was: "Don't hit me.

Go fight away from here.

I won't hook up with any of you if you hit me."

They wouldn't hit me, but they would hit each other.

Not me, thank God, I'd be in trouble if they all ganged up to beat me up.

So you always get something out of it.

If you need something just ask the girl and she'll get it for you.

It's unusual for a transgender man to have it bad in there.

Pot, blow, candy, it's all there.

And because I was single, I got all these gifts.

The girls send them to you to win you over.

They treat you like a king until you're married,

that's the truth.

I LOVE YOU

So I hooked up with this woman, the prettiest and biggest criminal.

It was about survival, I didn't know how to deal with it,

how to talk, how to act.

I hooked up with her for two months, in separate cells, just visiting,

but at a certain point,

I really wanted us to have a serious relationship.

In New Year's Eve, I wrote her a letter,

told her I really liked her and wanted to be with her,

even out here.

Our life in there is in there, it's separate from out here.

Many people don't mix the two,

they want to live something in there and that was that.

We decided to carry it forward.

It was so shocking to everyone in that jail,

we shut that place down.

I walk like a man, I'm a man, I feel I'm a man,

and she walks around in large shorts and robes,

so other people see her as a lesbian in that jail,

the man.

So let's put two men, two people hooking up,

who dress alike...

I'll tell you the truth, I started having some happy times in there.

It was a wonderful ending to my time in jail,

after I met her.

All the girls addressed me with male pronouns.

All of them. I was immediately seen as a man.

They asked me what was my alias, and I didn't get it.

"My name's Pablo." "No, Pablo's your name."

"Pablo's my name? All right." "So your alias is PL."

So they started calling me Pablo, PL, "he",

and I liked it, it was a good fit.

I think the hardest thing in there, at least for me,

was to embody a stereotype of a cisgender criminal male.

I didn't have it in me at all.

I spent 5 years in that jail,

and I got out afraid of robbers,

afraid of the police, afraid of everything.

I should've gotten out with a PhD,

as a big time criminal, but no.

I became an animal.

In jail, I started disrespecting women,

which I hadn't done before going to prison.

I lost myself a bit.

Until my previous relationship,

I was still a very sexist and bigoted man,

and I learned it in jail.

Now I'm seeing a therapist to work through this,

because I realize I didn't use to be like this.

FEMALE ENTRY

"MY JOB ISN'T TO BE NICE TO PEOPLE, BUT TO MAKE THEM BETTER."

Torture is the idea that someone

is systematically causing you pain,

intense suffering,

which can be both physical, psychological or moral.

The system as a whole can already be considered torture.

This manifests itself within the structures of oppression

we have inside prisons.

So people with physical disabilities will be under more oppression,

women will be under more oppression,

black people are already under oppression,

already have more chances to be imprisoned as a group,

and on top of that, they'll suffer more psychological damage

because they're targeted.

There's a repression

in regards...

to the sexual orientation

as well as the aesthetics of those who are sent to this jail.

It's based on the idea that women should be sweet, feminine...

It's the inmates who respect us, the guards don't,

all they care about is themselves.

"What, are you going to come out and get me?"

The system saw me as a girl.

"Who are you?" "I'm Pablo." "No, you're not."

That was even used to justify sending me to solitary,

or getting beaten up.

"If you're a man, you'll get hit like one."

If they didn't like you, they'd call your name from across the room.

They'd shout it out.

Twice a day you have to...

I can't remember what it's called, but they'd call your name,

it was embarrassing.

They have to use your name. "No, you're a woman!"

Even with an amended ID, I didn't have any rights,

and I was really shaken psychologically.

The girls, the inmates, respected and understood me.

"Don't worry, man, don't get in trouble over it.

If you keep saying that they'll take you to the back room."

They like to screw with your mind in there,

to destabilize you, force you to engage

and stay another year.

The chief of security persecuted me.

One day she decided to open up the cell

and put everyone in there, all 45 women,

over me, because I looked too much like a man.

All the time, she'd take me away from the cell, shave my mustache.

One time, I let my hair grow a bit, I didn't want to keep cutting it.

I don't know why she was mad at me,

she wanted to shave my head.

She'd make me face the wall.

"A black girl without breasts, and with a mustache?"

In her mind...

I don't really know what she felt.

Since 2014, we have a national policy

for the full-time care of the health of those deprived of freedom,

and what is also an innovation to me,

a resolution from the National Council for Criminal and Penitentiary Policy

which describes a set of specific measures

for the LGBT population.

And within these measures, gender issues are very well described.

So we're innovative when it comes to legislation,

but in practice, we can see that between the law books

and what takes place at the other end, where things happen,

there's an enormous gap.

Health isn't just about illness,

as described by the World Health Organization.

It encompasses leisure, a home, an education

and it even encompasses the desire to be beautiful.

That's health too.

So the demands of a population who is cut off aesthetically

are absolutely legitimate.

You couldn't even wear male underwear,

you'd have to pay R$ 70 or 80 for a pair.

I did all my time with a single pair of underwear.

You guys can't even imagine what it's like

to go a whole year and 8 months with a single pair of underwear.

I didn't get visitors, and I didn't take anything from anyone.

Sometimes visitors would bring new pairs of underwear

to the other inmates, so they could sell us.

My mother would always send two,

and if there was someone in line who wasn't carrying panties,

my mom would go "here's two more, give them to my son".

People would come to me a lot...

For your underwear.

Right, everyone wanted a pair.

To feel bad would lead to psychological damage, in fact.

Health is not just about bodily, physical health,

it's also about the psychological.

If a person points out the need for change,

some bodily transformation,

for them to feel comfortable psychologically, that's health.

By law, if you're already transitioning,

it has to keep going, but we know that doesn't really happen.

I had a prescription, but I needed an authorization to get the medicine,

so I didn't take any of my hormones.

You start getting your period,

which is what bothers us men the most.

Our hormones just freeze.

I was totally embarrassed, it felt awful.

We take these hormones that change our entire bodies,

we need medical supervision,

and the healthcare system doesn't even care, the system itself.

He's deprived of his freedom,

but not of the rights he's entitled to.

In the prison system, we do need support.

There's no reason not to, we're all the same,

and we're paying for our mistakes.

We don't have any data

about how many transgender women, how many transgender men,

how many gays, bisexuals, we don't have that information.

First because it's hard for us as healthcare providers

to understand that this is part of the process of care,

to acknowledge that identity.

If you treat people as things, there's no humanity,

no pain, no suffering, no rights,

no chance to become something.

To get to a clinic, you have to write a letter,

but you never get to go, you don't have the opportunity.

I had a friend, a transgender man.

He ended up dying of syphilis

because he couldn't get to the infirmary.

He couldn't get treatment,

because of bigotry, a bunch of stuff, he was a beautiful boy,

no older than 20, and he died of syphilis.

We should add a very important point regarding access to health:

respect to gender identity.

To me, a gynecologist's office

is one of the most oppressive places.

The doctor who's there to see me doesn't understand

why I, a transgender man, would need access to gynecology.

Gynecology, to me, needs to have its name changed.

Because the way it is,

it's implied to be just for women,

because just "women" would have vulvas,

just "women" would have vaginas.

The gynecological policy needs to change.

Is there a male vulva? I'd say so.

So it's hard to get to a gynecologist.

I'd get a transvaginal ultrasound every year.

He was a huge, brutish man.

When he took one of those things, he decided to get a bigger one.

It even made me bleed, because there are specific sizes.

He jammed it in there, and I said "Are you crazy, my dude?"

I just stood there, and a woman come in.

She put that stick in there, poked it around...

I told her "oh, darling..." "Does it hurt?"

I said "no, not at all."

She yanked it out:

"Why didn't you tell me you were on your period?"

"Because I wasn't", I said.

"Women are victims of more violence."

"No, dude, we're victims too."

"You're an alien, you don't exist, transgender men don't exist anywhere."

And that's why the suicide rates for transgender men are so high,

because being a man means you're silent,

you can't open up.

We don't have an idea, for instance,

of how many transgender men are killed.

If transgender women got all those public policies,

it was because they fought really hard for a really long time,

ever since the '70s and '80s.

When we got to the '90s, it really started getting traction.

When did we start talking about transmasculinity in Brazil?

We started in the '2000s.

We still have ways to go.

There's still no elaboration,

it was just created, having started in the '2000s,

and these bodies are still too recent as a concept,

although they have had experiences.

We know these people exist, and that they're there.