Trans, Non-Binary and Gender Non-Conforming People Inclusion Events

Trans Together: A Celebration of Community and Connection
Wednesday 19 November, 4pm - 5pm
Square 5

Trans Day of Remembrance Vigil
Thursday 20 November, 5pm - 7pm
Atrium

Trans Allyship Workshop
Tuesday 25 November, 1pm - 3pm
CTC.2.02

A History of “Mayhem and Regress”: Black LGBT Lives and the Colonial Structuring of Rights in Brazil
Thursday 27 November, 4pm - 5pm
Zoom - Link to join webinar: https://essex-university.zoom.us/j/96789805646

This seminar outlines my research trajectory, connecting my completed Master’s dissertation and my ongoing doctoral project. Set within a Brazilian context shaped by the modern/colonial world order and guided by the national motto “order and progress”, my work adopts an epistemological approach that centres those embodying “mayhem and regress” in this society: Black LGBT people living in favelas. My Master’s research examined the ADPF das Favelas, a case brought before the Federal Supreme Court which addressed police violence in Rio de Janeiro as a persistent breach of Brazil’s constitutional principles. Drawing on Black and LGBT decolonial thought, I explored how the case’s legal reasoning aligns - or fails to align - with the lived realities of Black LGBT residents of favelas. Noting how these lives remain largely unacknowledged even within this ostensibly progressive case, my doctoral research turns to the Supreme Court’s criminalisation of “homotransphobia”. Through analysing the Court’s interpretation of “race”, I argue that the legal framing of LGBTphobia as a form of “social racism”, while celebrated as progressive, paradoxically reinforces colonial racial hierarchies and the marginalisation of Black LGBT people.

Lucas de Souza Oliveira is an Associate Fellow at the University of Essex and a lecturer at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Brazil, where he teaches in the Department of Law and in the MBA programme at the Business School. His work bridges law, critical theory, and human rights, with particular attention to race, gender, sexuality, and business and human rights. He is affiliated with the Interdisciplinary Centre for Afro-descendant Reflection and Memory (NIREMA) and the research group Law in “Pretuguês”, which explores Afro-diasporic and decolonial perspectives on law and language. Lucas also contributes to the Terras e Lutas project, focused on land conflicts, traditional territories, and socio-environmental justice. Alongside his academic work, he is a practising lawyer specialising in media law.