“Eu não sei se eu tenho capacidade de sonhar…talvez eu tenha perdido essa capacidade”: entre a história dos sonhos da população trans paraense e a teoria crítica da alienação

Abstract

This paper seeks to investigate the problem of alienation faced by the Brazilian transgender population, specifically in relation to their absence from the formal labour market. Using the method of content analysis of the questions "What is your greatest professional desire?" and "What is your greatest dream in life? ", used in the research project "Labour, Employment and Trans Income: a study on access to the labour market for transgender people in the State of Pará", developed by the Institute of Legal Sciences of the Federal University of Pará with the support of the Public Ministry of Labour in Pará and Amapá, as well as through bibliographic analysis of the most important articles, TCCs, dissertations and books developed on the subject of trans employability in Brazil, we sought to answer the problem question: How does the way trans people dream about their own lives highlight the problem of alienation from the labour market that they face? Based on the critical theories of Rahel Jaeggi and Axel Honneth, the main finding of the research was that the trans population's capacity for desire has been limited to the mere desire for the material survival of their bodies in the world. This is the real guiding principle of the trans experience in the labour market, and it is in this sense that the trans population has suffered alienation from the formal labour market, but also in the labour market (in the rare cases where they occupy this space). It was also recognised that this problem of ability to desire feeds back into the cycle of social exclusion of this population. Furthermore, from the interlocution with Amy Allen's critique of the Frankfurt School, Felipe Campello's Critique of Affection, decolonial theory and Brazilian Transfeminism, it was realised that the dream narrative deserves attention and to be better elaborated in order to improve the way of thinking and to develop new solutions to the social problems of the trans population.