This thesis addresses general questions about the relationship between the making of gender, the politics of national and ethnic identities, local - global articulations and the process of cultural transformation amongst Muslim Tausug and Sama communities in Sulu, the Southern Philippines. Specifically, I am concerned with the meaning, and experience, of the bantut, transvestite / transgender, homosexual men in Sulu. There is a long tradition of transvestism and transgendering in island Southeast Asia, where transvestites were considered to be sacred personages, ritual healers and/or, as in Sulu, accomplished singers and dancers who performed at various celebrations and rites of passage: embodiments of, and mediatory figures for, ancestral unity and potency. More recently, however, transvestites have emerged as the creative producers of an image of beauty defined in terms of an imagined global American otherness. This thesis is an attempt to understand and explain this phenomenon. In particular, I explore the relation between the collective endowment of the bantut as the purveyors of beauty, and their symbolic valorisation as impotent men and unreproductive/defiling women: those who are seen to have been overexposed to and transformed by a potent otherness. What is ultimately at stake, I argue, (and what is being asserted through the symbolic circumscription of the bantut) is local persons' autonomy over the process and consequences of cultural and political transformation in the face of the exclusionary violence of state enforced assimilation. However, the thesis is also concerned with the expressed transgenderal projects of the bantut themselves, a project which is variously about status and gender transformation, the elation and pleasure they experience in the production and performance of beauty, and the attempt to overcome the prejudice of the local populace, whilst establishing relationships that are based on mutuality and shared respect. What this thesis demonstrates is that there is nothing ambiguous about ambiguity, sexual or otherwise. Rather, it is the specific product or effect of different historical relations of power and resistance through which various cultural subjects are created and re-create themselves.

Esta etnografia analisa as experiências geracionais e de envelhecimento entre travestis identificadas ou autodeclaradas mais velhas e as perspectivas de relacionamento com as travestis mais jovens. Para tanto, examina as narrativas produzidas pelas interlocutoras acerca do curso de vida, descrevendo como contam o passado, avaliam as experiências vividas, dando destaque especialmente as inquietações e preocupações éticas que ensejam problematizações acerca da conduta. Com esse objetivo e com base empírica na cidade de Marília, interior do Estado de São Paulo, a partir de metodologias qualitativas, entrevistas, conversas informais e observação participante procura responder questões como: as percepções nativas acerca das vivências comuns e as transformações das práticas e identidades travestis nas últimas décadas; a produção de significados e a circulação de valores e reações aos sinais do envelhecimento; as influências recíprocas e a transmissão de saberes e legados entre travestis mais velhas e mais jovens. Essas questões permitiram examinar as trajetórias de travestis mais velhas problematizando-as como efeitos, não acabados e sempre em processo, de uma trama complexa de interações e relacionamentos substantivos, considerando suas intencionalidades e capacidades de gestão pessoal. A partir de suas narrativas descreve as diferentes possibilidades postas pela dinâmica do curso de vida, enfatizando os desafios de conduzirem suas próprias vidas e inventarem seus próprios mundos, bem como o modo pessoal de reagir ao presente e direcionar os percursos futuros da vida. / This ethnography analyzes the generational and aging experiences among tranvestites identified or self-declared older and their relationship perspectives with younger ones. Therefore, it examines the narrative produced by the interlocutor about their life course, describing how they talk about their past and evaluate their life experiences, highlighting especially their restlessness and the ethical concerns that causes problematization among conduct. To that end and empirically based on the city of Marília, São Paulo state countryside, based on qualitative methodologies, interviews, informal conversations and participative observation, this thesis seeks to answer questions such as: the native perceptions among usual experiences and the transformations of the practices and tranvestite identities in the last decades; the production of meaning and the circulation of values and reactions to aging indications; the reciprocal influences and the transmission of knowledge and legacies between older and younger tranvestites. These questions allow the examination of the trajectories of older tranvestites problematizing it as unfinished and in-process effects of a complex interaction and substantial relationships plot, considering their intentionalities and personal management capacities. From their narratives it describes the different possibilities posed by the life course dynamic, emphasizing the challenges of conducting their own lives and inventing their own worlds as well as their personal way of reacting to the presente and directing the future courses of their lives.

Esta etnografia analisa as experiências geracionais e de envelhecimento entre travestis identificadas ou autodeclaradas mais velhas e as perspectivas de relacionamento com as travestis mais jovens. Para tanto, examina as narrativas produzidas pelas interlocutoras acerca do curso de vida, descrevendo como contam o passado, avaliam as experiências vividas, dando destaque especialmente as inquietações e preocupações éticas que ensejam problematizações acerca da conduta. Com esse objetivo e com base empírica na cidade de Marília, interior do Estado de São Paulo, a partir de metodologias qualitativas, entrevistas, conversas informais e observação participante procura responder questões como: as percepções nativas acerca das vivências comuns e as transformações das práticas e identidades travestis nas últimas décadas; a produção de significados e a circulação de valores e reações aos sinais do envelhecimento; as influências recíprocas e a transmissão de saberes e legados entre travestis mais velhas e mais jovens. Essas questões permitiram examinar as trajetórias de travestis mais velhas problematizando-as como efeitos, não acabados e sempre em processo, de uma trama complexa de interações e relacionamentos substantivos, considerando suas intencionalidades e capacidades de gestão pessoal. A partir de suas narrativas descreve as diferentes possibilidades postas pela dinâmica do curso de vida, enfatizando os desafios de conduzirem suas próprias vidas e inventarem seus próprios mundos, bem como o modo pessoal de reagir ao presente e direcionar os percursos futuros da vida. / This ethnography analyzes the generational and aging experiences among tranvestites identified or self-declared older and their relationship perspectives with younger ones. Therefore, it examines the narrative produced by the interlocutor about their life course, describing how they talk about their past and evaluate their life experiences, highlighting especially their restlessness and the ethical concerns that causes problematization among conduct. To that end and empirically based on the city of Marília, São Paulo state countryside, based on qualitative methodologies, interviews, informal conversations and participative observation, this thesis seeks to answer questions such as: the native perceptions among usual experiences and the transformations of the practices and tranvestite identities in the last decades; the production of meaning and the circulation of values and reactions to aging indications; the reciprocal influences and the transmission of knowledge and legacies between older and younger tranvestites. These questions allow the examination of the trajectories of older tranvestites problematizing it as unfinished and in-process effects of a complex interaction and substantial relationships plot, considering their intentionalities and personal management capacities. From their narratives it describes the different possibilities posed by the life course dynamic, emphasizing the challenges of conducting their own lives and inventing their own worlds as well as their personal way of reacting to the presente and directing the future courses of their lives.