Creating stories with João Walter Nery:

Transmasculine writing against the current of history.

Abstract

This essay is also a simple tribute to João Walter Nery, commonly known as a pioneering transman in Brazil. Its elaboration stems from two historiographical research projects: first, the dissertation One is not born a man, one becomes one: the emergence of transmasculinities and the biographical space of João Walter Nery (1950-1988), ​​defended by the author in 2022; second, the ongoing thesis João Walter Nery, the pioneering transman: constitutions of self and gender transgressions in contemporary Brazil (1950-2018), both carried out within the scope of the Postgraduate Program in History at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Based on the analyses, sources, and experiences of this investigative journey, combined with transfeminist, intersectional, decolonial, and post-structuralist theoretical, methodological, and political references, I aim to create a narrative with João Walter Nery about his writing process and self-construction. In this essay, I seek to reflect on Nery's transgressive biographical space, transmasculine narratives, and the articulation of critical fabulation with transfeminism in the production of stories that go against the grain of cisnormative historiography. Finally, I reflect on Nery's role as a personal, social, and political project that aimed to create more dignified futures and, in some way, also allows us to reclaim our pasts.