In 2020, after the municipal elections, influencer Isabella Seba posted a video in which she said she was disappointed that “no truly feminist candidates were elected.” He added in a sarcastic tone: “The woman who received the largest number of votes is the man.” He pointed to current federal MP Erika Hilton (PSOL-SP), then an elected councillor. The sentence is not just an opinion. It is a direct attack on trans women’s gender identity. Denying Hilton’s status as a woman by calling her a “man” is the most blatant example of what transphobia means.
Some have tried to give this episode a relativistic character, as if the phrase discusses the distinction between sex and gender or is a legitimate political criticism. But this is certainly not a matter of freedom of expression.
The Constitution guarantees everyone the right to express their opinions, but it also promises dignity and equality to all people. When a speech denies a person’s essential identity, it ceases to be an opinion and becomes violence. Saying that a trans woman is a “man” is not just a linguistic error. It is a political gesture that reinforces stigmas. Words, when they normalize this kind of denial, serve as symbolic permission for aggression and murder.
It is impossible to ignore the context of the aforementioned sentence. We are talking about a concrete attack, on an open social network with thousands of followers, directed at a public figure, with the clear aim of delegitimizing its existence.
Therefore, the judiciary was called to speak. The controversy that followed this post is not just about the MP, but about how the Brazilian state will respond to transphobia.
To hold that such speech is protected under freedom of expression is to open a dangerous gap: If it is acceptable to deny that a trans woman is a woman, what else will be tolerated? Would we demand freedom of expression if a similar crime were directed against a black person, an immigrant, or a person with a disability?
In interpersonal relations, the understanding has already been reinforced that this kind of speech leads to the duty of reparation. A recent decision by a São Paulo court ordered MP Nicolas Ferreira (PL-MG) to pay compensation of R$40,000 for moral damages inflicted on a trans woman, after he posted on his network that she “considers herself a woman, but she is a man.”
We have therefore progressed in understanding transphobia as a civil crime, but we have yet to advance the criminal framework of these behaviours. It should not be said that judicial evaluation of a behavior to ascertain its criminal nature is a strategy of silencing or prevention. Public debate produces real and productive opposition only when we can control violence. This task is left to the state.
The criminalization of transphobia in Brazil, although it represents legal progress in protecting the rights of the LGBT community, is part of a complex global scenario, where the moral campaign against gender has produced authoritarianism and restricted freedoms, as we have already seen in other countries.
No progress will be made in criminalizing transphobia if behavior such as that analyzed here is justified by supposedly unlimited freedom of expression.
Trends/Discussions
Articles published with a byline do not reflect the opinion of the newspaper. Its publication aims to stimulate debate on Brazilian and global problems and reflects different trends in contemporary thought.