Brazilian Congresswoman-elect Erika Hilton (Left). Photo by Sâmia Bomfim in Wikipedia Commons.
SÃO PAULO — One of the two transgender women who won a seat in the Brazilian Congress in the country’s Oct. 2 elections described her election as an “important step for democracy.”
Belo Horizonte Municipal Councilwoman Duda Salabert, who is a member of the leftist Democratic Labor Party, also won her congressional race in Minas Gerais state. Salabert in a video she posted to her Twitter account noted she received the highest number of votes of any congressional candidate in her state’s history.
Salabert and Hilton are two of the 18 openly LGBTQ candidates who won their respective races.
President Jair Bolsonaro, a former Brazilian Army captain who is a member of the right-wing Liberal Party, will face off against Da Silva, a member of the leftist Workers’ Party who was Brazil’s president from 2003-2010, in an Oct. 30 runoff.
Bolsonaro has faced sharp criticism because of his rhetoric against LGBTQ and intersex Brazilians, women, people of African and indigenous descent and other groups.
The incumbent president, among other things, has expressed his opposition to “gender ideology” and condemned a 2019 Brazilian Supreme Court ruling that criminalized homophobia and transphobia.
Discrimination and violence based on gender identity remains commonplace in Brazil, and a Brazilian advocacy group noted 175 trans people were killed in the country in 2020. Keila Simpson, president of Associaçao Nacional de Travestis e Transexuais (National Association of Travestis and Transsexuals), a Brazilian trans rights group known by the acronym ANTRA, earlier this year told the Blade that efforts to combat violence against LGBTQ and intersex Brazilians have become more difficult because Bolsonaro is “propagating violence against LGBTQ people every day.”
Hilton acknowledged she worries about her safety. A security guard stood a few feet away from her while she spoke with the Blade.
“I am afraid, but I think that this fear is not going to be able to stop me,” said Hilton. “It is the fuel that motivates me.”
She also said she considers herself a role model for trans and trasvesti Brazilians.
“It is a big responsibility … but I feel very honored,” said Hilton. “I very much like to be able to be a representative for my people, and the more than 250,000 people who voted for me have confidence in me. This demonstrates that our work has the potential to have a gigantic reach; where we can advance efforts to end death, poverty, misery, genocide that we have.”
Bolsonaro ahead of the Oct. 2 elections sought to discredit Brazil’s electoral system.
The Associated Press notes Bolsonaro’s party gained seats in the Congress’ lower house, and Vice President Hamilton Mourão is among the Liberal Party members who won their Senate races. Concerns that violence could erupt in the country if Bolsonaro loses to Da Silva on Oct. 30 and refuses to accept the results remain.
Hilton told the Blade that Da Silva represents “democracy” and Bolsonaro is “the advance of fascism, the negation of rights.”
“We have endured horrors over the last four years because the current Brazilian (head of state) has been a very, very dangerous thing, which has been misery, which has been the dismantling of policies,” said Hilton, referring to Bolsonaro. “It is therefore necessary that Lula wins.”
