Last August, Europe granted full political asylum to Brazilian feminist and abortion rights advocate, Isabella Cêpa. Faced with up to twenty-five years in prison, Cêpa became Brazil’s first political refugee since the end of military rule in 1985. But the feminist fled persecution neither from right-wing death squads nor followers of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro. Instead, Cêpa opted to leave her country of birth due to prosecution for misgendering the transgender politician Erika Hilton. While the case against Cepa was eventually overturned, Hilton and other progressive legislators have since committed to criminalizing “transphobia.” At a time when leftist President Lula Da Silva faces a tight reelection against Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio, much of the Brazilian left remains in thrall to Brahmin progressive dogma.
In recent years, Brazil’s Supreme Court has targeted right-wing supporters of bolsonarismo in response to efforts aimed at overturning the results of the 2022 election. Accordingly, many left-of-center observers have lionized the top court as the “savior of democracy”—and it, in turn, has pandered to progressive causes. In 2019, the Brazilian judiciary reinterpreted homophobia and transphobia as forms of racism under the country’s 1989 Lei do Racismo. Then, in 2023, the court criminalized slurs against gays and trans individuals, with some prosecutors also deeming misgendering to be a slur. Fearing prosecution on these grounds, publications thereafter referred to trans Brazilians by their preferred pronouns.
Hilton, elected to São Paulo’s city council in 2020 and to congress two years later, is a member of Brazil’s woke party par excellence: the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL). Although Lula’s Workers Party (PT) also includes many educated urban progressives motivated by identitarian politics, the ruling party’s political identity remains broadly tied to its poor and working class base. The PSOL broke away from the PT during Lula’s first presidency, originally promising a less neoliberal alternative to the PT, but has since become the party of urban progressive enclaves.
“Hilton was the Holy Trinity of oppressed identities: black, trans, and a former prostitute.”
For the PSOL, Hilton was the Holy Trinity of oppressed identities: black, trans, and a former prostitute. When the intersectional lawmaker was first elected to office, the media celebrated the “most voted woman” in Brazil’s largest city. Cêpa, a São Paulo native, lamented in a social media post that the woman in question was actually a man. The lawsuit in response to this unspeakable offense carried a penalty of up to a quarter century in prison.
Cêpa is not the only person Hilton has sued for opining that trans women are men. The lawmaker targeted more than fifty online offenders in 2021 alone; and in March, Hilton filed a $2 million lawsuit against the popular TV presenter, Ratinho, on the same grounds. The fact that Cêpa was ultimately granted asylum in Europe seems to have embarrassed the Supreme Court, which subsequently ruled that Cêpa’s words constituted free speech.
Even so, Hilton has insisted on reopening the case, and prosecutors have continued to level suits against individuals referring to trans women as men. Worse, the ruling coalition in Brazil's Chamber of Deputies appointed Hilton as Committee Chair for Women’s Rights. The committee recently sponsored a so-called anti-misogyny bill by PT congresswoman Ana Pimentel. The bill defines a woman as any “person who identifies and recognizes oneself with the female gender, including trans women, transvestites and non-binary persons.”
Lula presents himself as a pro-worker populist, and is willing to criticize some varieties of progressive extremism, such as fanatical opposition to fossil fuels. But the Brazilian president’s stance towards gender lawfare of the sort pursued by Hilton has been one of willful ignorance. This posture—like that of Democrats unwilling to take a stand against trans competitors in women’s sports–is grossly insufficient for working-class Brazilians. A recent poll found that 74 percent of voters—including the vast majority of Lula supporters—dissagree with Hilton’s appointment as Chair of the Committee for Women’s Rights.
Several polls have found Lula tied with his challenger Flávio Bolsonaro, son of Jair. Hardly a pro-worker politician, the former president’s eldest son has promised to privatize 95 percent of state firms and to strengthen ties with Donald Trump. In Brazil and beyond, progressives are desperately in need of reassessing their priorities—particularly on issues that appeal to a small subset of voters while alienating the broader population. At minimum, Lula should break his silence and commit to vetoing his party's so-called anti-misogyny bill in its current form. The vast majority of Brazilians—like most Americans—agree that trans people should not be subject to discrimination in matters such as housing and employment. It does not follow, however, that those that don’t believe “trans women are women” should serve prison time.
Regardless, and whether or not Lula wins reelection, Brazilians are unlikely to go along with the wishes of São Paulo’s “most voted woman.”