AS VIVÊNCIAS ESPACIAIS DOS MEMBROS LGBT DA IGREJA DA COMUNIDADE METROPOLITANA EM MARINGÁ E DA IGREJA EPISCOPAL ANGLICANA EM CURITIBA E A CONSTITUIÇÃO DAS SIGNIFICAÇÕES DE SUAS SEXUALIDADES

Abstract

This research shows how the different spatial experiences of LGBT members of the Church of the Metropolitan Community of Maringá (ICM-Maringá) and the gay members of the Anglican Episcopal Church of Curitiba (IEA-Curitiba) constitute the meanings of their sexualities. The investigations were conducted through 17 interviews, following a semi-structured script, eight of them with LGBT members and two with LGBT leaders from ICM-Maringá. At the IEA-Curitiba, five interviews were conducted with the gay members and two with the leaders. The analysis of these interviews was guided by the sub-questions proposed for this dissertation, which were related to: (a) How are the religious space experiences of LGBT persons attending the Church of the Metropolitan Community and the Anglican Episcopal Church in Paraná;(b) How the sexualities of LGBT goers are established by religious experience in the Church of the Metropolitan Community and the Anglican Episcopal Church in Paraná;and (c) How the theological perspectives of sexualities are structured in the Church of the Metropolitan Community and the Episcopal Anglican Church in Paraná. All interviews had their contents analyzed according to the constitution of semantic networks, as proposed by Bardin (1977), which give meaning to the spatial dimensions lived by these people. The whole process of analysis resulted in a total of 987 evocations, which were classified according to discursive spatiality and discursive categories. Both ICM-Maringá and IEA-Curitiba differ from fundamentalist churches,since both theological practices and interpretations of biblical texts are based on contextual, historical-critical theological understandings, as well as sympathizing with the feminist, gay, and inclusive theological perspectives. Thus, they constitute spaces with discourses and practices of welcoming and respecting people. However, LGBT people, socialized in other religious denominations, mostly fundamentalists, find in the ICM-Maringá and IEA-Curitiba a religious alternative, which allow people to reconcile experiences, religious practices and their sexualities. In this way, they reframe their religious understandings and conceptions, breaking with the notion of sin apprehended in the course of their lives. The interviews elucidate that the spatialities are constituted by complex relations of chains, discourses and practices. These, in turn, contribute to the constitution of the meaning and resignification of the people, consequently they are directly linked to the identity categories. In the case of this research, it was evidenced that gender, sexuality and religiosity have great relevance in the life of these people, revealing that the religious discourse permeates all the spatiality and instances of the life of the group studied (LGBT members of ICM-Maringá and for the gay members of IEA-Curitiba). Going further, such discourse reinforces and justifies other discourses as regulatory in relation to sexualities, thus contributing to a reiteration of the sexualizing process of sin.