by A Brazilian lawmaker from Jair Bolsonaro’s party, Nicolas Ferreira, attacked feminist women and transgender people in a speech to the House of Representatives on International Women’s Day. His mandate is in jeopardy and he faces an investigation by Brazil’s Federal Public Ministry.
During a speech to the plenary session of the Parliament to celebrate International Women’s Day, Nikolas Ferreira, the biggest vote in Brazil in 2022put a blonde wig to criticize the transgender population.
At the speech, he quipped that he “felt like a woman” with the wig and that “Women lose space for men who feel like women.”
Brazil, which criminalized the crime of transphobia in 2019remained in 2022, for the 14th consecutive year, as the country where transgenders and transvestites are murdered the most in the world.
Complaints
A group of organizations working to defend the rights of LGBTI+ people and parliamentarians filed complaints through crime transphobia against MP.
For the National LGBTI+ Alliance and the Brazilian Association of Traumatized Families, authors of one of the complaints, the deputy’s statement forms hate speech because it associates trans women “with a threat that must be fought.”
The entities claimed that this type of speech threatens the physical integrity of the LGBTI population and reminded high rates of violence against these groups in the country.
In the other complaint, filed by a group of 14 lawmakers led by Érika Hilton and Duda Salabert, the first transgender women to reach Brazil’s Congress, the lawmakers accuse Ferreira of crimes of humiliating public office holders because of their gender choice and threatening to use violence against someone’s civil rights because of their gender.
Apart from the possible investigation at the Federal High Court (STF), the MP may also pass by political process in the Parliamentas a group of MPs asked the Ethics Council to launch an investigation into the dismissal for transphobia.
The request for an investigation by the Ethics Commission could even go ahead because even the mayor, Arthur Lira, criticized Ferreira’s stance and said the full Legislative Assembly it is not “a scene of showmanship and much less prejudiced reasons.”
According to parliamentary competence, the member of parliament he can only be investigated by the Federal High Court for crimes committed while in office.
the deputy
Ferreira with 1.5 million votes was the MP with the most votes in Brazil in parliamentary elections of last October.
the deputy one of the main voices of the Brazilian far righthe is quite popular and active on social media thanks to this 6.5 million Instagram followers.
