Stigmatization and Discrimination: A Qualitative Case Study of the Transgender Community in Brazil.

Abstract: This thesis is a qualitative case study of discrimination based on stigmatization towards transgender individuals in Brazil. The current President, Jair Bolsonaro has made some extreme statements about the LGBTQ+ community throughout his career in politics, starting when he was a congressman in Rio de Janeiro and keeps doing so today, normalizing stigma and discrimination towards the LGBTQ+ community. Against this political background, the study shows the lived experiences of being part of the transgender community as well as how stigma and discriminations have affected their lives. Throughout April and May 2020, 16 participants took part in this study to share their inner thoughts and experiences with me through a qualitative questionnaire and in-depth email interviews. The main findings of this study show that the majority of the participants have been discriminated against based on societal stigma. There are many different factors contributing to this such as a variety of different types of stigma based on the stigmatization theory by Erving Goffman (1963), developed by Pryor and Reeder and Bos et al (2013). The participants of the study mention numerous occasions that have impacted them in their everyday lives in relation to stigmatization theory, including findings in all four manifestations by Pryor and Reeder (2011) revised by Bos et al (2013).