I’ve always been the tomboy little girl with a group of guy friends, there to break every single gender-normative idea. I was the loud girl who tried way too hard to look, sound, and honestly, pass as masculine.
But as I got older, my self perception got confused. I started realizing that labels and stereotypes were what I was becoming: honestly, at 15, I was a walking lesbian stereotype. I cut my hair short because I thought that’s what made sense for my sexuality, I only wore flannel shirts because the internet told me that’s what’s being gay looked like. The more masculine I acted, the more validated I felt, it was like I had to prove myself all the time to fit into this idea of what a lesbian should be.
I started losing sight of what was genuinely me and what was just a performance of a stereotype I thought I had to live up to. It took me years to untangle my real identity from those expectations and realize that queerness isn’t a checklist: it’s who I’m, in my own unique way.
And that’s what shook me awake. It made me start questioning what it actually means to be queer, and how to express my sexuality without changing who I am or letting the world define me by how it perceives me.
So I guess that’s how my experience went. I went from a 13-year-old who discovered what bisexuality was and felt like it fit what she was feeling, to a 15-year-old who still thought she was bisexual, just not into the boys at her school, her neighbourhood, or basically any space she existed in. Then came her 18th birthday, with heartbreak, college, and a confusing sexuality that turned into a constant question: “What am I doing? Is it worth kissing these boys?” And finally, to a 20-year-old who learned to love being queer and to accept that maybe boys were only meant to be her friends.
HOW IS IT BEING QUEER IN BRAZIL?
For a long time, I thought being lesbian was something I needed to prove to other people through how I dressed, who I dated, or the labels I picked for myself. I felt like I had to fit into a box to be taken seriously, like queerness only existed if it looked and sounded a certain way. But little by little, I started realizing that my identity wasn’t something to be explained or performed: it was something to be felt, lived, and embraced in my own time, in my own way.
And that was just one of many insecurities I had in my identity as a lesbian, because being a queer woman in Brazil is living between fear and fire. It’s walking through a country that celebrates queerness in parades and pop songs, but still silences us in everyday life. I’ve been hypersexualized since I was a teenager, long before I even understood what it meant for me; men would make comments about me, ask me to “prove” my sexuality, or turn my identity into something for their amusement.
Being a lesbian in Brazil is hearing a man say he’ll “fix you” while Pabllo Vittar plays in the club. It’s being at a college party, kissing a girl, and getting interrupted by security because “that doesn’t happen at his party”. It’s watching the Pride Parade with joy while knowing that, at the same time, queer people are constantly targeted by aggressors, whether it’s a random guy on the street or the president. Living here as a queer woman means carrying both resistance and exhaustion in your chest, every single day.
But not everything is bad, right? São Paulo is an amazing place to be, at least most of the time. The community here is so welcoming, so diverse, and you can be anyone you want. Stereotypes are just something created to torment us by straight, cisgender people who can’t handle what they don’t understand. Here, I’ve found friends who feel like family, spaces where I don’t have to explain myself, and moments where being queer feels less like resistance and more like freedom. Brazil is a violent country for women and for the LGBTQIA+ community, but it’s also a country that pulses with art, culture, celebration, and resistance. And we know how to survive and resist through all of that.
From my experience, being queer in Brazil means navigating a complex world of contradictions, a place where love and fear coexist, where celebration meets violence, and where invisibility battles with fierce visibility. It’s a journey of self-discovery, resilience, and courage. Despite the challenges, I’ve learned that my identity is not defined by others’ expectations or stereotypes, but by the love I give and receive, the community that embraces me, and the strength to keep walking forward. This is my truth, imperfect and beautiful, lived fully and unapologetically in the heart of Brazil.
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The article above was edited by Marina di Bernardo Babichak.
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