Travesti: Sex, Culture, and Gender Among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes 
How, according to Kulik, do Brazilian travestís think about gender and sexuality? In Travestí, Don Kulick explores the lives of several different Brazilian transgendered prostitutes and gathers their views on sex, gender, and culture. These transgendered prostitutes, referred to as travestís, are typically males who place heavy emphasis on their physical appearance by adopting female names, clothing styles, hairstyles, cosmetic practices, and linguistic pronouns. They also ingest either female hormones or industrial silicone directly into their bodies to acquire more feminine bodily features including big breasts, wide hips, and large buttocks. So how does the modification of their bodies and physical appearance relate to how travestís understand and define their own gender and sexuality? How travestís act and choose to live their lives, in regards to what they wear, how they look, and what they refer to themselves as, are predominantly motivated by their gender and sexuality and what it means to associate with a certain gender/sexuality.
Brazilian travestís believe that they are “constructive essentialists.” This means that they believe “males are males and females are females because of the genitals they possess and one can never change the sex with which one was born, but, even though God made a person irreversibly male or female by installing a particular set of genitalia, different morphology of those genitalia allows for different gendered possibilities to be explored and occupied” (Kulick 193). Travestís can all agree that any biological male who claims to be a woman is suffering from a psychosis and in need of help. Despite the fact that they live their lives dressing in female clothing, referring to each other by female names, and enduring the painful process of acquiring female bodily forms, travestís do not self-identify as women because they do not wish to ever remove their penis. However, they do not consider themselves “men” either. Instead, they
Brazilian travestís believe that they are “constructive essentialists.” This means that they believe “males are males and females are females because of the genitals they possess and one can never change the sex with which one was born, but, even though God made a person irreversibly male or female by installing a particular set of genitalia, different morphology of those genitalia allows for different gendered possibilities to be explored and occupied” (Kulick 193). Travestís can all agree that any biological male who claims to be a woman is suffering from a psychosis and in need of help. Despite the fact that they live their lives dressing in female clothing, referring to each other by female names, and enduring the painful process of acquiring female bodily forms, travestís do not self-identify as women because they do not wish to ever remove their penis. However, they do not consider themselves “men” either. Instead, they
Cited: Kulick, Don. Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1998. Print.