The experience of religious identity death in transgender people:

a reflection based on the concept of disenfranchised grief

Abstract

This article is the result of reflections originating from two research projects developed by the Laboratory of Psychology and Transdisciplinarity (LaPTrans) of the Department of Psychology at the University of the State of Minas Gerais (UEMG), Divinópolis unit. One project addresses disenfranchised grief, while the other focuses on the religiosity of transgender people. In this article, based on research data, we seek to discuss how trans people experience the disenfranchised grief of their religiosity, as they do not find within traditional confessional models a space for belonging or the possibility of living in a religious environment that allows them to reaffirm their identity and develop their spirituality. Methodologically, our study is grounded in phenomenology and discourse analysis, drowing on data from unstructured interviews and field observations. Although the projects were not originally linked, this article proposes establishing this connection by relating the narratives of trans people to the fundamental concepts of disenfranchised grief and its consequences for subjectivity. This exercise is foundational for our laboratory, which adopts transdisciplinarity as a paradigm for knowledge production.