Maria Quitéria/soldado medeiros: the soldier who was (not)

Abstract

From the books Vidas Preciosas (1977[1986]), de Dahas Zarur, A incrível Maria Quitéria (1977), de João Francisco de Lima, O soldado que não era (1980[2003]), de Joel Rufino dos Santos, Honra e Glória a Maria Quitéria (1995), de Osvaldo de Sales Gonçalves, e Maria Quitéria (1997[2010]), by Marici Salomão, we analyzed the historical and literary character Maria Quitéria de Jesus / Soldado Medeiros (1792-1853), with the aim of understanding mainly how the masculinity and the transit of gender experienced by the historical character, during the wars of independence of Bahia and Brazil, at the beginning of the 19th century, are narrated literarily. From the selected books, we can see that Maria Quitéria / Soldado Medeiros continues to have his masculinity denied, as well as the transit of gender continues to be reduced to the idea of disguise, which shows the great difficulty that the literary texts about Maria Quitéria / Soldado Medeiros have to understand not only masculinity as a biopolitical device that challenges all bodies, including those designated at birth as female, but also the transit of gender as a form of understanding oneself.