We’re delighted to publish this week’s blog from ReportOUT Human Rights Researcher, Rebecca Bolton. Rebecca’s time living in Brazil caused her to think more deeply about the paradox of legal protections for LGBTQ+ communities yet the murder of transgender women is the highest in the world.
When I was working in Brazil for a short while in 2018, the couple I was living with told me that the average life expectancy for a transgender person was 35 years. This floored me. How was that possible? This is compared to 75 years for the average Brazilian citizen (Bowater and Moraes, 2015). I talked to my colleagues later who said they were all aware of the violence; particularly towards transgender women. It turned out that Brazil was reported as the most dangerous country to be a transgender person with 167 people killed that year (Trans Murder Monitoring project in Reuters 2019).
Six months after I left Brazil, the Supreme Court ruled that homophobia and transphobia should be treated in the same way as racism under anti-discrimination laws (Texeira, 2019). So effectively, LGBTQAI+phobia is now a crime in Brazil. This is a huge step in the recognition of the discrimination faced by Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) persons and also in the omission of this law up until that point. However, transgender rights activist, Bruna Benevides, reported in 2021 that Brazil remains to be where the most transgender people are killed worldwide (2022).
So, since legal recognition in Brazil that LGBTQIA+phobia is a crime, the discrimination hasn’t stopped, the life expectancy remains the same and the violence persists. Why is that? The answer is (always) that it’s complicated.
A Deep Lack of Trust
Brazil is a largely catholic and evangelical Christian, both of which are often seen to oppose SGM rights (Texeira, 2019). This goes alongside an ex-president who was openly homophobic. There is therefore a deep lack of trust in the police in Brazil, particularly the military police who acted closely under his command (ibid). This can be seen in a report addressing discrimination and violence against LGBTQIA+ people in Brazil, that claims, ‘many hate incidents against sexual and gender minority persons go unreported and un-prosecuted’ (Malta et al., 2023). So, we are up against a dominant culture wrapped tightly around a doctrine that does not put SGM persons in a favourable light to say the least.
This is a hard challenge in itself but couple this with a law enforcement that cannot be relied upon, there is no wonder change is slow.
Another consideration is that discrimination does not just mean murder. This is the most extreme and ultimate consequence of hatred for any group, but violence comes in many forms, including structural, psychological, and institutional (Benevides and Noguira, 2019).
Evidence of this can be seen by the Supreme Court recognizing trans people’s right to gender identity without the need for medical reports or surgery in 2018 (Albino, 2019). So discrimination is woven into the fabric of institutions and this multi-tiered violence is very difficult to challenge via one method alone.
The ‘Rainbow Resistance’
The problem with any legislation, is that it is only as real as its implementation. This means that we are all responsible for making the rights of SGM persons recognised and this requires a multi faceted approach.
The Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) proposed in the ‘Recognition of the Rights of LGBTI Persons’ that data collection is key to ‘making rights effective’ (IACHR, 2018, p. 34). They stress that this can come in many forms but needs to be maintained and managed by civil society (ibid). A good example of this was seen by Malta who described an app designed to create safe spaces for the SGM community to report incidents, find support and be connected with others (2023).
The app was created by ‘Rainbow Resistance’ and was based on ‘community participatory research with representatives of the SGM community’ (ibid, para. 9). What is great about this is that the data is gathered by the community, for the community.
The trust and solidarity is being built whilst evidence is being gathered, therefore the approach contributes to solving the problem at a policy and a community level.
All Hands on Deck!
What I have tried to establish in this blog is that, whilst a progressive change in the law is monumentous for the representation and protection of any discriminated group, there will always be a gap between that change and what it looks like on the ground. It is, therefore, our responsibility as a society to ensure that representatives of the law are held accountable and we are putting in the work to shed light on the reality.
Real change only happens with all hands are on deck.
This concept of taking decisions made at a higher level and implementing them at the practical level extends beyond Brazil. Looking at the wider application of human rights, making rights effective could include taking international law and making it real in domestic law practice. Carmelo Danisi talks about this with SGM refugees and the benefits of using International Human Rights Law in border control to increase their protection (2019).
If human rights were adopted as a mandatory consideration in state immigration policy and enforced by representational lawyers, would this increase the amount of asylum seekers permitted to stay in their host countries and within decent conditions?
Bibliography
Albino, M. (2019) Criminalization of LGBTIphobia in Brazil is our Stonewall’s gift. Available at: https://aliancalgbti.org.br/2019/06/14/criminalization-of-lgbtiphobia-in-brazil-is-our-stonew alls-gift/ (Accessed: 1 Feb 2024).
Benevides, B. (2022) Dossiê Assassinatos e violência contra travestis e transexuais brasileiras em 2021. Brasilia: ANTRA.
Benevides, B. and Nogueira, S. (2020) Murders and violence against brazilian travestis and trans people in Brazil. Brasilia: The Brazilian Trans Institute of Education (IBTE).
Bowater, D. and Moraes, P. (2015) Brazil: Targeting trans people with impunity. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2015/4/22/brazil-targeting-trans-people-with-impunity (Accessed 30th January 2024).
Danisi, C. (2019) Crossing borders between International Refugee Law and International Human Rights Law in the European context: Can human rights enhance protection against persecution based on sexual orientation (and beyond?), Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Vol. 37(4), pp. 359-378.
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and Organisation of American States (OAS), (2018) ‘Advances and challenges towards the recognition of the rights of LGBTI persons in the Americas’, approved by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on December 7, 2018.
Malta, M., da Silva, A.B., da Silva, C.M.F. et al. (2023) Addressing discrimination and violence against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) persons from Brazil: a mobile health intervention. BMC Public Health 23, (2069).
Teixera, F. (2019) Brazil's top court rules to make homophobia a crime. Thomson Reuters 25 May. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1SV008/ (Accessed: 20 January 2024).
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