Despite having a president who has blocked an anti-homophobia law, it looks like LGBTQ activists in Brazil have still won a victory as the country’s Supreme Court has declared that transphobia and homophobia should be made illegal.
On the ground, it means crimes against the LGBTQ community are equal to racist crimes, with offenders possibly facing five years in prison if found guilty.
According to the Los Angeles Times, six of the 11 Supreme Court judges ruled in favor, with the other five set to vote on June 5. However, even if they all voted “no,” the outcome would still be the same.
The decision came about after the Popular Socialist Party and the human rights group ABGLT brought two cases to the Supreme Court. Both groups say that it was unconstitutional for the Brazilian Congress not to declare anti-LGBT violence illegal.
The ruling could not have come at a better time, as last year saw 387 homicides that were the result of homophobia happen in Brazil. In fact, 40 percent of all the anti-LGBT hate crimes in the world last year happened in Brazil.
This decision is also a welcome piece of good news especially after Kenya’s High Court decided to uphold its anti-LGBT laws.
With this Supreme Court decision, Brazil joins Switzerland as one of the countries that send people to jail for homophobia and transphobia. The other countries that have jail time in store for homophobes include Austria, France, and Denmark.
Adam4Adam blog readers in Brazil, we want to hear your thoughts. What is the mood like among the LGBTQ community there with regards to this decision? Supreme Court decision aside, have things become better or worse for the LGBTQ community under Bolsonaro’s regime? Share your stories with us in the comments section below.
So they didn’t rule against FEAR (phobia), but against hate crimes. Kinda misleading.
I agree. Very sloppy reporting.
Why didn’t you mention the US? Is it legal to assault or kill queers & lesbians in the USA? How about Canada, is it legal there? What about if somebody doesn’t mind the sexuality of the victim but beats the hell out of them anyway because the victim is an asshole or just on general principles? Is that still homophobia in Brazil? Or Switzerland? Can those who are queer go around bad mouthing queers or str8s without fear of prosecution? I swear, as a group, the LGBT community is just about the best example of how much of a bunch… Read more »
I agree with you! You cannot legislate the mind; all that is being done is setting up the individual governments as humane enities…to preserve existence and continued power. Push, Push, in-the-Bush tried to add a codicil on to The Constitution to mandate “Marriage” as “strictly” between a male and a female. Obviously, wiser minds prevailed. Brazil is impoverished and intolerant. I suspect, the Brazilian Government, passed the incidentals to protect its tourists and encourage increased tourism. The poor, as such, pay their government no more mind than we pay our politicans…regardless of Party. Such is the prime example of the… Read more »
“I swear, as a group, the LGBT community is just about the best example of how much of a bunch of cry-babies some people can be.” Hate crime laws in the US and elsewhere also apply to crimes where victims are selected because of their race, sex or religion. Does that mean that everyone is a crybaby? By the way, Germany doesn’t ban “any talk” of its Nazi past. Indeed, Mein Kampf has been available there for several years. It does ban Nazi symbols, “glorification” of the Nazi past, Holocaust denial and so forth. But, not talk or discussion of… Read more »
Yes. Hate crime laws expand the definition of cry-baby. As I pointed out, crimes against the person are already illegal. Does the motive really matter? We’re not talking employment or public accomodation here, we’re talking about crime against the person. Hate crime laws, on the basis of race, elevate the status of somebody criminally harmed above that of somebody else similarly harmed. On the other side of it, young black men playing the knockout game with white people don’t get charged with hate crimes but young white men doing the same with black people do. Both criminally harmed people but… Read more »
Bingo!
A trumpling
Damn well said L.Q. Has to be the Best response I have ever read on At a.
If I murder 1 person my crime is lesser than if I murder 1,000. Hate crimes are deemed worse than non-hate crimes because they harm everyone in a particular class and the society at-large. So if I’m white and I murder someone white that is different than if I lynch a black man because that hate-crime not only takes one individual’s life but perpetuates racism which is corrosive to society at-large and the act was meant to intimidate and terrorize other blacks so I’ve harmed them as well. So yes, it is elevating one kind of assault as worse than… Read more »