“Our gender comes from God”

Heterosexual and cisgendered normativity in children's religious videos on YouTube

Abstract

Brazilian society is going through an intense discussion about “gender ideology”, triggered by religious politicians who take childhood as a priority object. Therefore, we consider it important to reflect on evangelical and Catholic narrative productions about gender and sexuality, in children's videos published on YouTube. By analyzing three productions that reiterate gender binarism as the only possibility of existence, we understand that these Christian discourses try to disqualify the problematization of gender diversity. Our goal is to understand how segregated cultures via primary ideas about taboos and social order support conservative discursive practices. We believe that this alignment with the concepts of sin, purity and impurity contributes to forms of violence against those who assume non-binary gender identities, especially transgender people. We observe that the videos defend an idea of abnormality and end up authorizing, in a certain way, the intolerance against people who do not align themselves with cisgender and heteronormative ideals.