Learning About Trans Technologies and Work in Brazil and Argentina

Joaquim Renato Alves de Souza

My name is Joaquim. I’m a Brazilian transmasculine person, and I identify as a boyceta. My pronouns are he/him or they/them. I’m a member of the delivery cooperative Señoritas Courier and the Brazilian Institute of Transmasculinities (IBRAT), where I currently coordinate the Campinas branch in São Paulo. I’m also part of a ballroom house in Brazil called A Cibernética Casa Transvyada.

Language, culture, identity, technology, and work—these were some of the “territories” through which I learned during my first trip to Argentina in November 2024. This was also my first international trip, made possible through support from the Queer and Trans Research Lab (QTRL). I left Campinas, São Paulo, to take part in research activities for the Worker-Owned Intersectional Platforms (WOIP) project, funded by SSHRC, and to attend sud0américa—an event created by and for activists, hacktivists, and artists interested in discussing and challenging technology from critical, intersectional, and Latin American perspectives.

But I did more than just that. I met LGBTQIAPN+ people in Buenos Aires and learned how they are reclaiming ballroom culture. I also danced cuír/queer tango, interviewed other trans people, and practiced speaking Spanish. I shared my experiences as a Brazilian transmasculine person from the working class (“from the peripheries”), passionate about technology.

One thing that stood out to me was how, in Argentina, people use the term travo for transmasculine individuals. In Brazil, the feminine version, trava, is more commonly used. Recently, some transmasculine researchers in Brazil have uncovered historical records showing that travo  was also used for transmasculine people. This has sparked debates within the community. That’s why it was so important to see how different places have different perspectives on the topic and on the politics of language among us.

Listening to other dissident bodies talk about technology during this trip was deeply meaningful. It proved to me that many people are reclaiming technology in their own ways—and that’s powerful. It made me feel less alone in my journey with technology.

Language as a Field of Struggle, Identity, and Resistance

Words matter. The LGBTQIAPN+ vocabulary in Argentina caught my attention because it reflects some of the same linguistic and political struggles happening in Brazil. Recently, there was a major controversy surrounding the boyceta identity. Conservative people responded with attacks, mockery, and erasure, as they always do. But beyond their anti-human rights stance, many people simply didn’t understand what it means to be a boyceta.

So, what does it mean being a boyceta? The term was coined by Roberto Chaska Inácio, a transmasculine person of Indigenous descent in Brazil. He created the word to refer to transmasculine people, and when I first heard it, I felt a deep connection. I am someone perceived as masculine, and I have a vulva. But the word man—even with trans in front of it—doesn’t fit me. For me, boyceta is an act of defiance, a way of hacking the gender binary and resisting the rigid system of sexual difference. By creating and reclaiming new identities, we disrupt the norm, breaking the rules, and recoding “the algorithm”—TRANSforming it into something that serves us.

Some people argue that “boyceta” is too focused on genitalia—I’ve even been accused of this. But for me, it’s the exact opposite. The term challenges the idea that gender identity is linked to genitalia and destabilizes binary thinking. Our society is built on phallocentrism, treating vulvas as impure, marginalizing them, and associating them with impurity and subservience. Cisnormativity, based on a binary and exclusionary model, reinforces this, erasing and devaluing bodies with vulvas, perpetuating dynamics of subservience. This creates barriers to self-determination and upholds a system that ranks bodies based on rigid gender norms. Being boyceta is a rebellion against all of that—against cisnormativity, genital-based definitions, and patriarchy itself. It’s breaking the binary and embracing my so-called “monstrosity”—being read as masculine while having a transmasculine vulva. I agree with Paul B. Preciado: “I prefer my new condition as monster to that of man or woman, because his condition is like a foot stepping forward into the void, indicating the path to another world.”

The word boyceta didn’t come from academia or a cis-heteropatriarchal man. It was born in the periphery, among working-class people, coined by a non-white transmasculine person, as part of a larger movement to decolonize our trans bodies. This identity is shaped by experience, resistance, and refusal to conform. For me, being boyceta is a tool for fighting colonialism—just like Pajubá, the dialect used by Brazilian trans people to resist censorship and violence during the dictatorship. We still use Pajubá today. Language is alive, and boyceta, like many other words in our community, shape our identities and dialects.

Most people don’t even understand what transmasculinity means. Even as I write this, my word processor underlines “transmasculine” in red, as if it’s wrong or doesn’t exist. But it does exist—it just refuses to conform to the dominant system. In simple terms: for me, all trans men are transmasculine, but not all transmasculine people are trans men. According to Preciado,

“The monster is one who lives in transition. One whose face, body and behaviours cannot yet be considered true in a predetermined regime of knowledge and power. To transition is to come to a machinic arrangement with the hormone of some other living code – the code may be a language, a music, a gesture, a plant, an animal or another living creature. To transition is to establish a transversal communication with the hormone which erases or, better still, eclipses what you call the female phenotype and allows for the awakening of another genealogy. This awakening is revolution.” (Preciado, 2021)

In Argentina, I was struck by how the word cuír (a Latin American version of queer) is used. I saw it as a challenge to colonialism—a way of reclaiming language instead of just adopting terms from the Global North. But the people I spoke with told me that neither cuír nor queer are commonly used in Argentina. This intrigued me because the same thing happens in Brazil. In working-class communities, these words don’t feel like they belong to us. They sound foreign, academic, and Americanized, like a kind of neo-colonialism.

Language is a tool for struggle. As the quilombola intellectual Antônio Bispo dos Santos teaches, using slang and dialects has always been part of our resistance. But language can also be a barrier. How many people in Brazil speak English? According to data I’ve seen, only two out of ten. I’m learning English now—because I need to for my work in technology. Queer is a word that mainly circulates among people who have access to higher education. In Brazil, three out of four people never attend university. This means that academic and imported terms don’t reach most people. The lack of cuír and queer in everyday vocabulary is part of this reality. I first encountered the word queer when I went to a public university. But when I go back to my communities, my territories, the places I come from—nobody uses it. To me, this proves that language is always a site of struggle, (mis)identifications, and resistance.

Meetings and Recognitions Between Brazil and Argentina

At the start of this text, I mentioned that my trip to Argentina was my first time traveling internationally. It was also my first time on an airplane—something that made me nervous. Facing this challenge made me feel capable and empowered. I felt that people are valuing meu corre (my journey). I came back determined to return one day—and to take my mother with me. She has never been inside an airport. She’s a domestic worker in Brazil, without labor rights or protections.

There was one Joaquim before the trip, and another after. Before, I felt unmotivated. Afterwards, I recognized my own power. A big part of that shift came from meeting other trans people in Argentina. There weren’t as many as I would have liked, but the ones I met were important. What I know about Argentina has come from the stories of these trans people. In Buenos Aires, I met two Brazilian transmasculine immigrants who have lived there for years. We exchanged stories about our lives and cultures. I introduced them to PAMKA, a transmasculine music duo from Brazil, and they had never heard of them.

“Boyceta! I’m on the front line, letting off firecrackers, running away isn’t even an option, internal war against the world…”
 — Tem Treta Lá, PAMKA, Ganjão

In all the stories I heard, I saw a political landscape similar to Brazil. We have our LGBTQIAPN+ communities, but conservatism remains strong. In both countries, we build our collectives to resist. There are connections and shared experiences between us.

Experiencing a bit of LGBTQIAPN+ culture in Argentina was another highlight of the trip. I attended a cuír/queer tango class, and it was a challenge. As a dissident child, I feel that many parts of me have been repressed, including the ability to express myself through my body. Being part of ballroom culture has helped me work through this. In Argentina, I found myself dancing tango in a way that broke with tradition—without someone assuming the role typically assigned to cisgender men, the one who leads the dance. In doing so, I was not just dancing, but affirming a political stance, challenging the gender binary structure embedded in the way tango is usually performed.

Beyond Digital: Learning About Technology as a Form of Resistance

On this trip, I learned a lot about technology as a tool for resistance. Through the WOIP research, I met people from the other organizations– also co-researchers of this project: the Argentine Federation of Tech Co-ops (FACTTIC), MariaLab, Alternativa Laboral Trans (ALT), the Tech Sector of the Homeless Worker Movement in Brazil, and Cooperativa Central. At sud0américa, I connected with activists challenging dominant tech systems.

Visiting the office of the Código Libre cooperative was an incredible experience. Seeing that it is possible to have a physical space for a cooperative made a strong impression on me. The Brazilian cooperative I am part of, Señoritas Courier, still doesn’t have one, and we really need it. Right now, we only have a legal entity registration and a lot of dreams. Going to Argentina made me realize that many things are possible. I saw a restaurant functioning as a cooperative, a pizzeria cooperative—things I hadn’t imagined before.

One powerful moment was speaking at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). We, the organizations participating in the WOIP research, had the opportunity to give a presentation to students there. Shortly after our presentation, a young man approached me to talk about his cooperative, which develops maps and works with georeferencing data. I had never heard of this kind of experience before, and I learned a lot from our conversation, just as I have from other exchanges about social technologies and political collaborations among collectives working with technology.

At the University of Buenos Aires, I initially thought I wouldn’t be able to speak because of the language barrier, since I don’t speak much Spanish. But with the help of those people around me, I was able to overcome this challenge. During the event, I realized that I could understand what was being said, and that was an amazing feeling. I was able to share my thoughts, and that meant a lot to me. I didn’t finish my undergraduate degree in Brazil, but I was able to talk at a university in Argentina, speaking about my experiences and perspective on technology to many people.

On that occasion, I talked about the importance of dissident bodies occupying the field of technology. It was a meaningful moment for me, but I also believe it was important for others in the room, as there were not many trans people present. In that space, I was the only transmasculine person—among the few trans people there, most were travestis, trans women, or non-binary individuals. Sharing my experiences as a transmasculine person trying to enter the world of technology might inspire others who also want to follow a similar path. It sends a message that our perspectives and existences need to be acknowledged and valued.

I also emphasized the need to develop social technologies, as they are the ones with real transformative potential. Social technology refers to a broader set of technological tools and practices that are deeply connected to community values, addressing social challenges through the active participation of those directly affected communities. Unlike conventional technologies, which are often driven by profit and exclusion, social technologies prioritize community impact and the democratization of knowledge.

My own journey in the Señoritas Courier cooperative is an example of this. Through a grassroots organization, I was able to grow in many areas, including activism, advocacy, technology, bicycle mechanics, tour guiding, and organizing cultural bike tours. All of these experiences represent an effort to reclaim and reshape technologies that have historically excluded us. We are now occupying these spaces. Instead of waiting for permission to enter these spaces, we are appropriating these technologies and TRANSforming them—making them more accessible, more just, and more aligned with our realities.

At another point in the trip, I gave an interview to another trans person, Elena Ficher, the president of ALT Cooperativa. We had a meaningful conversation about these topics. I was very nervous during the interview, but knowing that someone genuinely wanted to hear my thoughts was really amazing. This trip was a truly important moment in my life.

Through all of this, I reaffirmed my feeling that trans technologies are, above all, anti-colonial technologies. Dominant technologies have historically been developed by white cisgender men, reinforcing structures of accumulation and exploitation. Trans people, by breaking with the gender binary, challenge these structures at their core and propose entirely new ways of thinking about society. More than just adapting to existing technologies, we build alternatives. I am a dissident person, and my vision of technology is also dissident. There is no separation between who I am and what I do. The technologies I seek to develop are embodied—they are trans technologies.

When discussing the intersection of technology and labor, especially in cooperatives, equity is often emphasized. But we need to go further and think in terms of diversity, because equity alone is not enough for bodies that experience different realities. Our conditions of existence are not the same, and this must be taken into account when structuring our work and everyday lives. We need to build alternative ways of generating income that don’t erase the material realities of dissident people under the guise of technological development, which, in many cases, continues to operate within a colonial framework.

“And as much as I try to explain it, I can’t
 To make the abstract concrete that only I feel
 It’s like I’m staying here in this little corner
 Watching the world spin in abusive error…”
 Plano de Voo – Criolo

The illustration below was created by me in a moment of raw emotion, almost like a visceral impulse, an uncontrollable release, in the midst of a whirlwind of feelings and sensations. As testosterone acted on my cells, I was rediscovering myself as someone who didn’t fit into the norms of gender differentiation. At the same time, I was facing transphobia, existential crises, and the pain of misrecognition. Through abstract strokes, this image became both a self-portrait and an act of resistance. It carries messages that challenge phallocentrism, gender binarism, and the systemic violence that tries to erase us. Today, this illustration is permanently etched on my skin as a tattoo—a permanent reminder of my journey and the strength of being a boyceta