Health and necropolitics: experiences and perceptions of black gay men
Black masculinities, health, racism, necropolitics
The probability of black men being victims of homicides in Brazil is four times higher compared
to non-black men. Data indicates that in 2021, 84.1% of police interventions resulting in deaths targeted
black men, adolescents, and young individuals. There is a continuous effort by the State to construct an
image of inhumanity, highlighting certain bodies as dangerous; black gay men are perceived as the
embodiment of the unacceptable, something that should not exist, bodies destined for death. Thus,
considering that individual and collective dimensions in understanding health are dialectically related, and
recognizing that individuals are social beings inserted into a collective, there is an impossibility in
accessing health, being heard, assisted, and having suffering recognized, resulting in a true "cemetery of
the living" - symbolic processes of erasure and annihilation, representing a death in life. In this context,
this study aims to understand how health care experiences occur and what they entail for black gay men.
Using the therapeutic itinerary as a possibility to understand the health process, illnesses, care experiences,
starting from a perception that belongs to the individual themselves, so that they narrate how, when, and
which paths they have taken in seeking care.