Casa, tempo e cuidado trans

a Haus of Carão como prática museológica viva de memória trans

Abstract

This article offers a lived-experience case study of the Haus of Carão, a care-niche within the Themônias Cultural Movement (Belém, Brazil), showing how affect, time, and care operate as social technologies that stabilize gender transition. The house kept a physical headquarters (2017–2022), discontinued for financial reasons; it remains highly active across social, cultural, and artistic fronts, sustaining a welcoming infrastructure where many people transitioned calmly, modulating their own tempos (name, body, presentation) without hormonal or expressive coercion. Signature rituals include the “Day of Emotional Dependence” (a monthly gathering “for no reason,” driven by missing each other) and the “balneários” convivial days with a plastic pool on the street and a home barbecue hosted by a member, reaffirming the house as family, care, and respect, not only production/work. Methodologically, I combine situated autoethnography, a cartography of practices (rituals; pause/reversibility; construction/deconstruction; image-use agreements), and public document analysis, understanding these as living museology and community patrimonialization of trans memory. Findings: the care-niche functions as an archive-in-process and a device of social justice, regulating exhibibility (anti-extractivism), strengthening bonds, and reducing anxiety/regret, while not delegitimizing biomedical paths. I conclude that houses and collectives should be recognized and funded as care-and-memory infrastructures.