Ana Ester Pádua Freire

BIOGRAPHY

Ana Ester Pádua Freire holds a Ph.D. (2019) and a master’s degree (2015) in Religious Studies from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais (PUC Minas); a Bachelor in Theology (2014) from the Instituto Metodista Izabela Hendrix; and a Bachelor in Social Communication (2001), with a degree in Journalism, from the Centro Universitário de Belo Horizonte. She works with themes related to religion and sexuality, feminist theology, lesbian feminist theology, queer theology, artivism and theopoetics. She is an independent researcher of the theological work of Marcella Althaus-Reid and a columnist at Revista Senso (Senso Magazine – Contemporary Religious Sense).

ABSTRACT

“Queer Arctivism: talking back to the cis/tems”

Art, as an instrument of human emancipation, is an important political language of resistance as well as a community’s expression of its own experience. This paper explores the trans-conceptual encounter of art, religion and politics by presenting the case study of the Metropolitan Community Church of Belo Horizonte (MCC BH) and its participation at the “March Against LGBTphobia” in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. MCC BH is a member church of the Universal Fellowship of the Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), the first inclusive denomination in the world. MCC BH developed, through Queer Theology, a sui generis artivism exemplified by the performances of the drag queen, Simone Star. Through the lens of the trans-conceptual construction of a religious and a political liturgy, the paper will examine the use of artivism by MCC BH as a social language, which challenges cisgender and heteronormative systems.

The case study reveals that the active use of liturgy, as a ritualistic way this faith community identifies itself, is a fundamental mechanism to experience the world, while subverting the precariousness of being sexual and gender dissidents. As a result of that, the paper shows that religion and politics can be found in the religious temple, and on the streets, through art as an emancipatory activity that resists the cis/tems.