This year the number of trans candidates running for a popularly elected position broke a record in Brazil, with 76 candidates, 44% more than those registered in 2018, according to Antra data.
By first time in the history of Brazil two transgender (trans) women will fill seats as deputies from 2023, after being elected in the elections this Sunday, according to the official results known this Monday.
Erika Hilton, of the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), was elected in São Paulo with more than 257,000 votes and Duda Salabert, of the Labor Democratic Party (PDT), with about 208,000 in Minas Gerais.
Salabert voted on Sunday wearing a bulletproof vest, due to the threats he has received in response to his activism and his political career.
They were both councillors. Hilton in the city of Sao Paulo and Salabert in Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, in the southeast of the country.
Keila Simpson, President of the National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals (Second), celebrated the unprecedented event and told Efe that it was the result of a campaign “extremely intense” and of many battles during the process.
“They are two people who were in elective positions and now they pass for a more important position in the federal Parliament, where they will continue raising the flags that elected them, but also legislating for the benefit of the Brazilian people”, Indian.
Brazil will have two trans deputies for the first time
In Sunday’s elections, three transgender regional deputies were also elected in the states of Sergipe, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, in the latter case as part of a collective.
For Simpson, the political participation of the trans population for the first time in Congress will mean a “Hard battle” by the results of the Senate, since a good part of its new members are of an ideology “religious and fundamentalist”.
“Although the balance is positive, the elections refer us to a very strong picture of anguish due to the way in which Parliament and especially the Senate were established, because of some senators who were elected and who are people who cannot live with the diversity that we have in Brazil”, he pointed out.
The president of Antra stressed that the results are a consequence of the choice made by the voters “and democracy is there to be respected.”
The first transvestite to hold political office in Brazil was Katya Wallpapers, as councilor of Colonia, in the state of Piauí, in 1992.