Beyond Carnival

In Beyond Carnival, Green focuses on the Brazilian homosexual populations in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Despite the increasing acceptance by the general population, gay men still face discrimination, and Green chose to focus specifically on gay men so as to provide insight into a marginalized group and identity. This also allows the exploration of Brazilian concepts of masculinity and femininity, what constitutes acceptable behavior, and shared societal values.

The book details the history of sociability among gay men beginning in the late 19th century. Sources from this period are scarce so Green compiled information from police reports. Homosexuality was not explicitly illegal in Brazil, so police instead arrested men found having sex with other men for violating laws of public indecency or vagrancy. Most of these reports took place at the turn of the 20th century in Largo do Rossio, a park in downtown Rio de Janeiro, now known as Tiradentes Square. In the 1940s and afterwards, many gay men understood their sexuality through a gendered binary: the penetrated sexual partner, called the bicha (similar to bitch), was the subordinate, while the "real man", or bofe, was the penetrator. Early studies of male homosexuality focused on a small group of men with no acknowledgement^{[clarification needed]} of diversity within the subgroup. Madame Satã, for example, acted "masculine" but enjoyed being the "passive" bicha (or bottom) in sexual relationships.

After World War II, there was a mass influx of migrants from other parts of Brazil to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. During this period, the term "entendido" was used by middle class gay men to define someone who failed to fit into the strict active or passive roles in sex. In the late 1950s, Brazilian sociologist José Fábio Barbosa da Silva conducted research on a wider population of gay men, claiming that past studies may have been biased due to the framing of homosexuality as a disease rather than as a natural occurrence. Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo were among the first^{[clarification needed]} to begin releasing homemade newsletters, like O Snob, which focused exclusively on gay culture and gossip. These circulated in Rio during the 1960s.

Carnival festivities in Rio de Janeiro allowed drag performers to enter the public eye under the guise of costumes and celebration. Gay clubs with drag performances became more common in these two major cities, along with a rise in cross-dressing prostitution. The 1970s, Brazil saw an emergence of a visible gay rights movement, with activists pushing for laws that protected the LGBT community from discrimination and for greater representation in media. National conversations concerning civil marriage and violence, as well as increased representation in Carnival, have established a growing movement for national recognition that homosexual identities are just as valid as their heterosexual counterparts.^[1]