Is transphobia a crime?

Federal deputy Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG) is being accused of transphobia after he put on a wig and said he felt like a transsexual woman during his speech in the Chamber of Deputies. According to the parliamentarian, in this way he would have a “place of speech” to speak on International Women’s Day.

The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) asked the Chamber of Deputies to investigate what happened, and deputies from the PSOL, PDT and PSB asked for the annulment of their mandate.

In the representation against Ferreira, the deputies affirm that, “as it is possible to infer from the speech of the deputy, the content of his speech has an offensive and criminal character, since it is directed to manifest discrimination and ridicule transgender and transvestite people”.

In the MPF demonstration, the following also stands out: “It is repugnant for a congressman to wear the clothes of parliamentary immunity to, premeditatedly, commit a crime liable to be imputed to any citizen.”

Is transphobia a crime?

In 2019, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) decided to criminalize homophobia and transphobia, which came under the Racism Law. In the decision, the Court defined as a crime conduct that “involves a hateful aversion to someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity”.

The penalty can range from one to three years in prison, in addition to a fine. And it can reach up to five years of imprisonment if the act is widely publicized.

The decision also made the reservation that criminal repression for homophobia or transphobia would not restrict or limit the exercise of religious freedom. That is, believers and ministers of any religion can preach and publicize their religious convictions, as long as such manifestations do not constitute hate speech – which incites discrimination, hostility or violence against these people.

The Court also explains that the decision to classify the crimes in the Racism Law is due to the concept of racism understood in its social dimension, as a historical-cultural construction motivated to justify inequality between those who are part of a vulnerable group, in this case the community LGBTQIA+.

“Since they do not belong to the class that holds a position of hegemony in a given social structure, they are considered strange and different, degraded to the status of marginals in the legal system, exposed, as a result of hateful inferiority and perverse stigmatization, to an unfair and harmful situation of exclusion from the general system of protection of the right”, says the document.

Nikolas Ferreira said, in his speech at the Chamber, that women would be “losing their space for men who feel like women”. And that “they are trying to impose a reality that is not reality”.

The parliamentarian also said that he knew how to run the risk of going to jail for transphobia for having congratulated only “women [com cromossomos] XX” for Women’s Day. “It is an imposition. Either you agree with what they are saying, or otherwise you are a transphobe, homophobe and prejudiced, ”she said.

The justification for those who accuse the deputy of the crime of transphobia is that he would have discriminated against transsexual women in his speech just because they are transsexual.

The reflections of transphobia

Brazil was, in 2022, the country that most murdered trans people in the world for the 14th consecutive year.

One survey carried out by the National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals (Antra) showed that 131 trans people were killed in the country last year. And another 20 committed suicide because of the discrimination and prejudice they suffered.

Most of these victims were between 18 and 29 years old, and the average life expectancy of transgender people in Brazil is just 35 years.

Of the 131 murders, 130 were committed against transgender women and 76% of the victims were black or brown.

The survey also points out that, among the victims, prostitution is the most frequent source of income, since transsexuals find fewer job opportunities.