Embates sobre questões de gênero e sexualidade no Plano Municipal de Educação de Santa Maria/RN: o fruto proibido na educação escolar

Abstract

Using bricolage as a scientific methodology (MEYER AND PARAÍSO, 2014), this study aimed to investigate the factors related to the withdrawal of gender and sexuality issues from the Santa Maria/RN Municipal Education Plan (2015-2025). To that end, we conducted semi-structured interviews with three members of the Municipal Forum of Education of Santa Maria / RN responsible for the analysis and re-elaboration of the goals and strategies of the Educational Plan and conducting the whole process of construction and approval of the base document. During the collection of the data, two main focuses of analysis appeared, concerning respectively what is commonly known as "gay kit" (which refers to the School without Homophobia Kit) and "gender ideology" (expression coined by conservative groups that attributed to a supposed leftist agenda that would have as its goal the destruction of the "natural family"). The concept of gender developed in this work is based mainly on the studies led by Guacira Lopes Louro (1945-) among other researchers on the subject; as to the concept of ideology, the description provided by Norberto Bobbio (1909-2004) was adopted. The threads around these two analytical nodes eventually weave the nets that have evidenced certain beliefs such as a supposed existence of a leftist agenda that aims at the extinction of the natural family; the belief that gender is previously defined by biological determinism, but that it may be altered by external experiences and / or influences. These beliefs, added to a few others, were decisive in the decision taken by the members of the Santa Maria / RN SME drafting committee to silence the gender and sexuality issues of the main text.