Brazil out of the closet: Sexual diversity, gender and social struggles

Abstract

Why are left-wing movements, where many LGBT activists in Brazil come from, resistant – if not opposed – to the incorporation of this agenda into their political agenda? The book Brazil outside the closet, by Leonardo Nogueira, Maysa Pereira and Rafael Toitio, is a direct political intervention in this debate. The book argues that issues of gender and sexuality are “inseparable from human sociability” (p.18) and, therefore, cannot be excluded or considered a “smokescreen” (p.17) by social analyzes of capitalism, or by socialist and popular movements. On the contrary, the central point of the book is to present how such questions are at the center of the genesis and history of global and Brazilian capitalism.