FAKE NEWS DO KIT GAY COMO DISPOSITIVO DA SEXUALIDADE – Análise das produções de discursos em 2018 a 2023

Abstract

This dissertation aims to analyze the production of discourses surrounding the fake news known as the “Gay Kit” as a dispositif of sexuality in Brazilian political campaigns between 2018 and 2023. It is an interdisciplinary investigation that understands fake news as a phenomenon located at the intersection of anthropology, political philosophy, gender studies, and digital communication. The research seeks to understand how these false narratives operate as a discursive technology that strengthens conservative projects, restricts sexual and reproductive rights, and legitimizes practices of symbolic and material violence against dissident bodies. The study is situated within the field of relations between disinformation, politics, and subjectivation, articulating contributions from contemporary anthropology, critical social theory, and feminist studies in dialogue with Michel Foucault’s concept of the dispositif of sexuality (2017; 2023), Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity (2019; 2023; 2024), Avtar Brah’s intersectionality and social markers of difference (2016), and Aníbal Quijano’s concept of the coloniality of power (2005). The methodology adopted is qualitative and critical in nature, combining procedures from netnography, documentary analysis, and Foucauldian discourse analysis, in dialogue with decolonial perspectives. The corpus includes content circulated on social media, public statements by political agents, and materials used in electoral campaigns between 2018 and 2023. The research is grounded in an interdisciplinary, critical, intersectional, and decolonial theoretical framework, drawing on the works of Judith Butler (2019; 2023; 2024), Michel Foucault (2017;2023), Avtar Brah (2016), and Aníbal Quijano (2005). The findings reveal that the fake news surrounding the “Gay Kit” operate as dispositifs of power that update strategies of social control through the mobilization of moral panics. These narratives articulate discourses of childhood protection and Christian morality with attacks on sexual and gender diversity, producing effects of exclusion and marginalization of dissident bodies. The study identifies the operation of a disciplinary regime over sexuality that regulates and normalizes nonconforming bodies, while simultaneously reiterating the coloniality of power through the articulation of race, class, and gender. Conversely, practices of resistance emerge in social networks and public spaces through performative alliances that dispute meanings of gender and expand struggles for sexual citizenship.It is concluded that the fake news of the “Gay Kit” are not merely isolated instances of disinformation but constitute an articulated dispositif that reinforces heteronormativity and conservative projects in Brazil. By mobilizing moral fear as a political strategy, these narratives directly affect the citizenship of dissident subjects, women, and the LGBTQIA+ population, weakening the democratic fabric. Nevertheless, emerging forms of agency—especially within digital networks and social movements—reveal fissures in regimes of truth, opening paths for re-existence and symbolic struggles for recognition and rights.