My name is Megg Rayara Gomes de Oliveira. I am a transvestite. I hold a doctoral degree in education from the Federal University of Paraná.

I am currently a substitute teacher for didactics class, also at the Federal University of Paraná. And I teach drawing classes, as well, at the Cultural Foundation of Curitiba. And, also, I am a militant supporter of the social movement of black people, as much as of the LGBT movement.

I've already heard of some people, including some of my students, say to me: "Gee, when you started to teach, we kept wondering. . .

. . .

what sort of class would it be? What kind of activity will happen? " As if I'd do anything totally out of academic context, as if I'm not a prepared and capacited teacher to occupy that position.

Thus that type of fiscalization reveals in itself society's stereotyped vision of the transvestite, and of the transvestite teacher too. For example, at school, even in class, I pretended that I was assimilating all these normalizers speeches. But actually it was only so that no one would bother me.

And since I did not like school, my strategy was to make good grades and pass all subjects before the end of the school year. And how I always got my vacations before, I'd spend less time at school. Until I realized the importance of a school qualification in one's life.

That being a proper school education. Because only after that enlightenment that I began to understand that this education would also work as a weapon, as a counter-dispositif. The Adolfo Caminha's book "The Good Nigger" I've read at my second year of high school and this book put me in contact with an universe that.

. . that was entirely forbidden for me.

With those issues of sexual pleasure between people of the same sex, of the same gender. But I lacked the courage to read the book. To read it in public, because of all that deprecating image, that haunted that publication.

So I took off the cover of Iracema, putted it onto The Good Nigger's cover, that was of the same edition, and I carried it everywhere. Then I could read without anyone disturbing me about it. And the Good Nigger, the portrait of Amaro, at the same time that it made me recognize myself in him in a positive way, it also made me recognize in him in the deprecating way.

The stereotypes attributed to him were strongly bad and vile. And that made me think about other matters, mostly of my childhood, when I have gone through such a demonization process. Then it was devil's little faggot, devil's little bitch, devil's brat, the devil himself.

So, that matter of the demonization was also very present in The Good Nigger. When I started to paint, when I started to produce art, I've said: "When I'm painting black people they're going to be black people in a very potent way, very positively. " I have always worked with drawing.

I've work at a newspaper at my hometown, and I used to make illustrations. I'd make those illustrations and write as well, it was a very trashy thing, because I was 18, 19 years old, when I've got that job at the paper. Before that I've worked at an alcohol distillery.

When I've got out of the distillery and went working at the paper, it was an emmancipation moment for me. And at that job, I've met some people that were already getting their college graduations. And that was an impulse in order to convince myself that I also could get a university degree.

Megg! I always think to myself: "If I don't pass the test to become a formal teacher I have to manage somehow", so making tattoos is a thing that I like to do and also it pays back quickly. I got my doctorate while I was working with tattoos.

What I've noticed is that the racism here is much more blatant, whereas in the countryside what bothered me the most was homophobia. And the first job I've had here in Curitiba was at a glasshouse and I worked with technical design there. I was at a bar next to the glasshouse with the man that had hired me, and we began to talk, when he told me: "Look, about the hiring, who had to final decision was me.

" That was my boss speaking to me. And he said that he considered both the racial matter and the sexuality matter. Because, as he was telling me: "The other boy was white, straight, he had more conditions to be hired than you do, so what settled was precisely the difficulty you have at being absorbed [by the labour market] compared to other people.

" It was the first affirmative policy that I'd contact with, in which I felt contemplated in a very nice way. These little beads here, a lot of them were given to me by my students at the drawing classes. They saw me embroiding, and they kept bringing them.

"Teacher, I have something to give to you. " These bigger ones, they all came from donations of the Cultural Foundation. It was very cool.

In relation to the repercussion of the defense of my doctoral thesis What I percieved, mostly through the social medias, is a real stimulus to keep occupying the academic space. I recieved a lot of support messages. .

. a lot of comments like: "Look, I wasn't gonna study but seeing what you have gone through, your experience, I decided to continue my studies, I'm going to persist". Some girls that are in the process of hormonization felt encouraged to express publicly their female gender.

Those examples point out to a reality far different from that which the common sense supposes, that every trans person, especially trans girls, transvestites, want to work in the beauty area, in the area of aesthetics. And actually that's what is left to us. Those are the less opressive areas.

Even so it is very convenient for some people to think that because I've got this title every other one of us could have gotten it also if they wanted to. And it is definitely not like that. .

. the obstacles that were built are far to difficult for us to overpass. The high heels are also political.

Because when I go to the university, at no chance I go on sandals, I need to go on heels because I want to people to know that I'm arriving. I don't come in excusing myself anymore, I come in making toc-toc, making noise. This is the dress that I've worn at my doctoral defense.

This point here is like a heart and there's a bullet mark right there. And those needleworks [fuxicos] are not there fortuitly it is the actual fuxico, that represents [in portuguese] the prejudicial speeches, the mean commentation. That will lead to the violent situations as well.

Here I embroidered the name of ten girls and the first one was Dandara. If I've kept embroidering the dress it would be pratically filled. I have just embroidered the names of girls who died this year.

When I say that I am the first transvestite with a doctorate degree by the Federal University of Paraná, the first black doctor transvestite of the country, this has to have an air of denouncement and not one of celebration. We're not supposed to commemorate, but to denounce because this reveals the situation of violence, the situation of exclusion in which we live in. When I said I wasn't coming alone to the defense, I said, I'm bringing these people that died but that, in a way, took part in a process of opening the pathway in which I transit today.

I am aware of that and it is because of that I make my presence in the university a political speech as well. I guess I was 17, 18 years old when I first knew about Megg. Megg is a black girl from my hometown.

During a certain period she expressed herself in the male gender. She took part in some music festivals of the city, she sang very well. And when she started to reclaim a treatment in the female gender she was put aside completely.

She began to prostitute herself at Maringá. Maringá, by being a larger city, is 67 km away from my hometown, there already was a much more consolidated prostitution of transvestites. She had a very deprecating nickname in the male gender that I'm not even going to reproduce because that nickname also bothered me a lot due to its racism.

People attributed to her a very bad denomination. And one day she was. .

. I work at the town hall, I guess, I started to work very young. And there was a group of men chatting.

I suppose I was at my desk. I worked as architectural designer. And the men were saying: "Do you remember Mr so and so.

. . " And it was about Megg they were talking.

". . .

I went to Maringá one of these days and then I passed through the bus station. . .

" And the old bus station is where the transvestite prostitute themselves. ". .

. and I saw the guy there in miniskirt, in dress. .

. " And always reffering to her in the masculine gender. And that same man that saw her, said that stopped the car on the sidewalk, honked and started to call her, but he called her by the nickname.

And in a way to tease her. And he said that she came, on her heels, very powerful, very wonderful. And when she got to the window of the car, she said: "I am not Mr so and so, my name is Megg.

" And then she turned and left. So, this story. .

. it is a tribute to her and an apology. Because I couldn't.

. . I have not had the courage.

. . to defend her.

. . and that way.

. . when I decided that I was going to have a feminine name it would be Megg.

That's why I'm Megg. And I am very happy being Megg.