by Jean Wyllys, Member of Parliament from Brazil and member of PGA
In his book “Moses and the Monotheistic Religion,” Sigmund Freud says that democracies are exceptions and not rules, because there is something in the human character that tends toward authoritarianism. Even democracy itself does not stop producing internal enemies, as Tzvetan Todorov says. They appeal to populism, to fear, to the discourse of hatred and to demagogy based on disinformation, inciting majorities against minorities, so that the rights of the latter are not protected. That is why, sometimes, we are impatient with the times of democracy. This is the price we have to pay though, since contrary to what happens in autocracies and dictatorships where things are determined and imposed, there is a time for debate in democracy.
The National Congress of Brazil represents almost all the interests of a nation composed of more than two hundred million people in a country of continental extensions. However, that representation is distorted. There are many more men, even though the majority of the population is female; there are many more white representatives, even though the majority of the country is black; there are many more wealthy individuals (entrepreneurs, ranchers, millionaire pastors), despite the fact that the majority of the population is poor; and there are segments that are almost never represented, such as the LGBT population. This explains, in part, why Parliament, to this day, has never approved a bill that extends full citizenship to our community.
There are many proposals under review in favor of LGBT people, and many others against. There are rights that depend on laws or other norms. For example, gays cannot donate blood (I introduced the bill to end this discrimination); trans people cannot change their name or gender in official documents without lengthy court proceedings (to amend this, I introduced the “João Nery” Bill), and there is no legislation that protects LGBT people from discrimination and violence, as there is, for example, the law against racism.
But it is not only the Law which discriminates against us.
The school does not educate against prejudice and does not protect LGBT children and adolescents from bullying, under pressure from religious fundamentalists. There are no good national public policies to combat discrimination in the workplace. Trans people, for example, have enormous difficulties in finding employment and, in many cases, are practically forced into prostitution, where, because there is no regulation of the profession (my “Gabriela Leite” bill intends to correct this), they are exploited and have no right to anything. Hate speeches against LGBT people circulate freely in politics, religion and the media and impact people’s lives, increasing violence and hate crimes. Many LGBT people suffer violence and discrimination even in their own family. It takes a lot of public policy to help change all this.
On the one hand, the conservatism installed in the National Congress, and in the state and municipal chambers, has managed to prevent the advance of proposals that can guarantee fighting against this violence; on the other, we have advanced in the recognition of our citizenship.
For example, this was the case of the recognition of same-sex marriage by a decision of the National Council of Justice (NCJ) and as a result of an action by my mandate, following an earlier decision by the Federal Supreme Court. The celebration of marriage is the social legitimation of conjugal relations. Thus, depriving homosexuals of this right is to exclude them from public celebration. In addition to property rights, it is a symbolic exclusion that has a strong cultural and social impact, this is why marriage equality is so important.
Although this right is already guaranteed by the decision of the NCJ, we need to continue the battle for the National Congress to legislate on this matter, by amending the Civil Code. That is why I have presented, together with Deputy Erika Kokay, bill 5120/2013. A parliamentary decision, in the form of a law, would have a social and cultural impact that goes beyond the right to marry. If we extend – not as a judicial decision but as a legislative one – this political and social recognition of the value of our families, if the State recognizes in the text of the Law that they exist and are as important as the others, this would have an impact on the reduction of homophobia in the medium term, as has happened in other countries.
Our country leads the way in the murder of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transvestites and transsexuals, but those who oppose the criminalization of discrimination against LGBT people argue that our legal system already has laws to punish violence, and that one specific law dedicated to homophobic violence would be a “privilege of the LGBT community”. The privilege would be not to address homophobia as other types of discrimination. When racism is treated in one way and homophobia in another, it opens up a space for the hierarchization of life and the dignity of people.
I think homophobia should be included in the anti-racism law, so that there is no hierarchy between types of discrimination, but I think the way the law should deal with the problem is another. It is not simply through criminal law that we are going to eradicate homophobia, racism or other types of discrimination, and I believe that the increase in the penal state, even in these cases, is not a good idea. I consider that hard violence (hate, personal injury, etc.) motivated by hatred against any of the categories recognized by international law (race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, foreigners with stigmatized nationalities, people with disabilities, etc.) should have aggravated sentences, but insults and non-violent discriminatory acts must be punished with alternative penalties: not with a simple fine, but with social-educational penalties that serve to “cure” this social ailment called prejudice.
We need anti-bullying programs in schools, national campaigns against prejudice, public investment in policies for diversity, legislation that allows people to defend themselves against discrimination at work, in access to public services and in other areas of social life.
I always say that education is transformative. And indeed it is. Or it should be in all spaces. Education provides the mechanism for (re)inventing ourselves and the world around us; what the philosopher Hannah Arendt calls “life with thought”. A life that goes beyond the mere satisfaction of basic needs and the mere repetition of old preconceptions. That is why I also presented the bill 6005/2016 that creates the “Free School” program throughout the national territory, a project that defends a school with critical thinking, democracy, plurality and secularity and that fights – through education, culture and knowledge – bullying, violence in all forms, prejudice and discrimination.
Indeed, in recent years little progress has been made in terms of public policies for LGBT people in Brazil because we have coalition governments made up of very conservative forces. Other countries of the region, notably in Argentina and Uruguay, but also in Chile, Colombia and Mexico, have made much more progress.
No democracy can be considered as such if the rights of gays, lesbians and transsexuals are not observed and promoted in any way, if there is legal discrimination, if the laws do not protect the rights of their citizens.
I know many people who believe that homophobia only exists when a homosexual is killed. Homophobia has many ways of expressing itself. The most common of all is social homophobia, the one practiced by almost everyone. That, practiced by the father or mother when they say that they do not want to have a gay son and would prefer to have a thief son than to have a gay son; that, practiced by the boss when he dismisses his employee who has assumed his homosexuality; the one practiced in schools, for example, in relation to their students. And even when it is not expressed as hard violence, it also offends and harms.
The government of President Michel Temer (the legitimacy of which is strongly contested by many in the opposition) does not point to progress on the issue either. The Ministry of Health, for example, has already organized hearings with people who advocate for the pathologization of homosexuality.
It is a moment of struggle and resistance.
Our biggest challenge is to work with the next parliament so that several positive proposals that favor the LGBT community, and have been introduced, can finally be approved. And, above all, to mobilize large sectors of civil society to commit themselves and fight for a cultural and political change that will bring Brazil out of the darkness and into the 21st century.
