The main LGBT+ achievements in the last three decades

Exactly 30 years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) stopped classifying homosexuality as a pathology, meeting claims made for years by the LGBT+ movement. This remarkable change ended up giving rise to the International Day against LGBTphobia, a day to raise awareness about the struggle for rights that is still exercised by the community today.

Thirty years later, the achievements of the LGBT+ population in Brazil listed below may not be many, but they are undoubtedly significant. Unfortunately, however, and reflecting the conservative position of our rulers, the majority did not come from legislative initiatives, but from the judiciary. “The approval of a law is always better, precisely because it gives greater security, because we no longer depend on the concrete composition of the Federal Supreme Court to have our citizenship respected. However, the National Congress has shown itself to be completely homotransphobic, as it refuses to pass laws that expressly protect the rights of the LGBTI+ population”, reflects Paulo Iotti, doctor in Constitutional Law and CEO of the Group of Lawyers for Sexual Diversity and Gender (GADvS), which was the author of the actions that led to the recognition of homotransphobia as a crime of racism.

For Erika Hilton, co-state deputy in São Paulo for the collective mandate of the Activist Banquet (PSOL), these 30 years are just the beginning. “We have many steps to take to gain entry into the formal job market, the right to one’s own identity, affection, family, religiosity and a non-violent state. The next is to belong and stop experiencing the social apartheid that we experience every day”, says the parliamentarian. And the best way to break through the conservative barrier in the three branches of government is to insert “LGBT+ people in politics so that they put pressure on and understand that we have the capacity to set the tone”, considers the human rights activist, transgender and black.

Both the co-deputy and the constitutionalist lawyer show how the representative articulation of these achievements, that is, thought and elaborated by LGBT+ people, impact on the assertiveness of the laws, for example. Regarding actions on the criminalization of homophobia, Iotti recalls: “Of the five LGBTI+ people who spoke on the day of the trial, we had three gay men (myself among them), a lesbian woman and a trans woman. Of these people, only the lesbian lawyer went without my intermediary, the others were people I asked to prepare petitions and make oral arguments. Place of speech and representativeness matter, it is important that the STF hear the theses directly from vulnerable groups that request its protection ”, she added.

Erika reveals that her presence and the content to be said by her are constant targets within the Legislative Assembly. “I face very particular challenges of my existence in such a conservative and retrograde place, which constantly attacks the lives of LGBT, black and poor people directly and that is all that my body and this mandate represents. But managing to move forward with the agendas and awaken the attention of parliamentarians to the urgency of our debates is the biggest challenge”, she says.

1997 – Sex reassignment

Despite having been performed in Brazil since 1971, sex reassignment surgeries only became legal by the Federal Council of Medicine (CMF) in 1997. Published in September of that year, the resolution authorized “on an experimental basis, the performance of surgery of gender reassignment such as neocolpovulvoplasty, neophalloplasty and/or complementary procedures” for the treatment of what, at the time, was still called transsexualism. To undergo the procedure, the patient had to be at least 21 years old and undergo two years of follow-up with a multidisciplinary team consisting of a physician-psychiatrist, surgeon, psychologist and social worker. The resolution was reviewed twice in 2002 and 2010 and, as of January of this year, surgery is allowed from the age of 18, while the minimum age for starting hormone therapies is now 16. At SUS, reassignment has been offered since 2008.

2009 – Company name

In August, the SUS, through Ordinance No. 1,820/2009, became the first national body to make available in its documents a field for registering the social name, regardless of what could appear in the civil registry. Gradually, other institutions and companies began to adopt the measure, such as the Ministry of Education which, from 2013, allowed the use of the social name in the Enem and, in 2018, in school records of basic education.

The road in search of rights is very long, we have conquered some, but there is still something missing to guarantee our dignity and belonging to society.

Erika Hilton

2010 – Same-sex adoption

The first time that a homosexual couple obtained a judicial authorization to adopt a child was in 2006, in the city of Catanduva, São Paulo. However, another four years passed before the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) ruled in favor of including the names of the two mothers on the birth certificates of two children who had been adopted by one of them, taking advantage of the loophole in the law that allows people to single adopt. In 2015, it was the turn of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) to take an unprecedented position, after the Public Ministry of Paraná tried to limit a gay couple to adopting only children over 12 years old, with the justification that only from that age onwards the child could comment on the order. After a series of appeals, the case was taken to the STF, where it was recognized that the same-sex union represents a family nucleus like any other, the age limitation being invalid.

2011 – Civil Union

It was also the STF that judged and recognized the stable union between people of the same sex, based on the Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI) 4277 and the Argumentation of Non-compliance with Fundamental Precepts (ADPF) 132. The first sought the recognition of same-sex marriage as a a family entity and the extension of the rights and duties of stable unions between heterosexual partners to those between homosexuals. ADPF 132, on the other hand, claimed that, by not recognizing same-sex unions, it would be hurting itself and going against the rights of equality, freedom and human dignity provided for in the Federal Constitution. In 2013, notaries began to be authorized to register homosexual civil marriages through a resolution of the National Council of Justice.

Society needs to learn to respect (as equals) or, at the very least, tolerate (not discriminating against or physically or morally attacking) LGBTI+ people.

Paulo Iotti

2018 – Change in civil registry

9 years after the first steps in the recognition of the social name, the STF authorized, in a unanimous decision, transsexuals to change their name and gender in the civil registry even if they did not undergo sexual reassignment surgery. According to the rules of the Corregedoria of the National Council of Justice, the change can be made at any registry office without the need to present a judicial authorization, except for minors under 18 years of age. In this guide produced by Casa 1, it is possible to understand the steps and what documentation is required to carry out name and gender rectification.

2018 – Depathologization of transsexuality

Also in 2018, WHO removed transsexuality from the list of mental disorders encompassed by the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Classified as a “gender incongruence”, it became part of a chapter dedicated to conditions related to sexual health and was defined as “a marked and persistent incongruity between the gender experienced by the individual and the sex assigned to him”. Still according to the ICD, behavior and preferences of gender variants, by themselves, are not a basis for assigning diagnoses in this group.

2019 – Criminalization of LGBTphobia

After three months of debate in the STF, a decision was approved that made discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity a crime. Thus, discriminatory acts framed in these reasons are now punished by the Racism Law (7716/89), as a kind of discrimination by race, in the political-social and non-biological sense of race and racism. In practical terms, Paulo Iotti explains that, “with the recognition of homotransphobia as a crime of racism by the STF, the States may feel more encouraged to carry out surveys of violence (physical or moral) practiced due to sexual orientation and gender identity of the victims.” In the case of disdain for the State to collect such data, it would be proven “that Brazil is institutionally homotransphobic, that is, even though it claims to have no intention of discriminating, it has actions and omissions that have a discriminatory effect and this is undeniable”.

The criminal lawyer reiterates that criminalization is a short-term measure, but that inclusive and emancipatory education is a long-term measure. “The LGBTI+ Movement has always fought for an education that promotes freedom, tolerance and respect for human rights, as required by our Law of Guidelines and Bases, our Constitution and the Additional Protocol of the American Convention on Human Rights”, he concludes.

2020 – Release of blood donation

The most recent LGBT+ achievement was held at the beginning of May, when, in yet another historic decision, the STF overturned the restriction that prohibited gay and bisexual men from donating blood. Reinforcing the stigma that associates them and blames them for HIV transmission, the prohibition has long been criticized by figures in the health area, who pointed out its inconsistency, since, regardless of its origin, donated blood always undergoes tests. before use in transfusions. The decision was approved with 7 votes in favor and 4 against.

All women can (and should) take an anti-racist stance