When, in 2010, Lula signed the decree establishing Might 17 because the Nationwide Day towards Homophobia, it had already been 28 years because the GGB, Grupo Homosexual da Bahia, had revealed in its Bulletin (n.4, Sep.1982) and launched by the primary time in Brazil the idea of homophobia. Until I’m mistaken, it was solely in 1985 that Folha de S. Paulo revealed the time period homophobia for the primary time (in an article by Nestor Perlongher on AIDS), and Jornal do Brasil, in 1987. At this time, Google-BR signifies greater than 4 million entries for “homophobia”.
The second pioneering spirit of the GGB within the struggle towards homophobia stays heroically lively till at the moment: already in 1981, in our first Bulletin (out there on-line at Google) we began to publish the listing of homosexuals murdered in Brazil – 20 “homocides” between 1969-1981 . Unhappy job that we repeat yearly, making a file of 7231 deaths, 256 within the final 12 months, with a median of 127 LGBT+ being killed violently within the FHC authorities, 163 within the first Lula period, 296 throughout the Dilma Authorities, 425 below Temer and 303 deaths in Bolsonaro’s presidency. There aren’t any sociological regularities that specify such chronological variations, nor any correlation with a better or lesser diploma of group of the LGBT+ motion: for instance, Bahia, regardless of having dozens of LGBT+ teams and the most important variety of parades in Brazil, has been the state the place extra violent deaths are recorded on this section of the inhabitants.
It was the GGB who found the primary sufferer of homotransphobia in our historical past, the Indian Tibira from Maranhão, who was blown up within the mouth of a cannon in 1613, martyrdom commanded by the French Capuchins in São Luiz, “to purify the land of the abominable sin of sodomy”. The GGB is petitioning the Vatican for his canonization.
Our fourth pioneer initiative was to have launched in Brazil, in 2005, the primary celebration of the Worldwide Day towards Homophobia, a date that 5 years later grew to become the Nationwide Day towards Homotransphobia, an occasion celebrated in our fundamental cities.
It was additionally the GGB that claimed, nonetheless within the Nineteen Eighties, the equation of homophobia with the crime of racism, lastly acknowledged by the STF in 2019.
Sadly, we’re experiencing a dramatic contradiction: on the one hand, we’re one of many international locations on this planet the place LGBT+ folks have achieved the best variety of rights (marriage, adoption, identify change, quotas, reference facilities on the federal, state and municipal ranges), however, then again, Alternatively, Brazil is the world champion in homotransphobic violent deaths: one dying each 16 hours in line with a survey by the Ministry of Human Rights (2019).
Homophobia has an answer: intercourse training in any respect faculty ranges, legal guidelines that punish homotransphobia as racism, public insurance policies that promote full citizenship for this section and mobilization of the LGBT+ inhabitants in protection of their rights.
Luiz Mott is Founding father of GGB and prof. holder of UFBA
