“Sea of bullying”: a whirlwind of violence against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transvestites, and transsexuals at school

Abstract

This study aimed to understand the experiences and senses of bullying experienced by lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transvestites, transsexuals, and other identities. This qualitative research was conducted with nine participants older than eighteen years and who identified as members of the interest group through interviews conducted from a semi-structured script. The corpus analysis was guided by the social theory of discourse and aided by Kitconc 4.0 software. The reports show the contrast between the temporality of the term bullying, foreign word of the 21st century in the Brazilian context, and the constant presence of violence in the school environment in the trajectories of the participants. The advancement of communicative technologies also constitutes this sea of bullying by widening the reach of violent scenes and globalizing shame, cursing, and punching. The way to deal with this permeates the direct confrontation, encouraging the school community to debate and protect children and adolescents marked by cis-heteronormative hegemony. Thus, it is in the resistance of existence that bodies in assembly hope and claim the rights inherent in life, advancing beyond survival and regulated citizenship. Adolescents and children crossed by bullying are potencies of themselves, and it is up to us, now adults, the ethical commitment to enable other ways of being in this world.