South America
Transgender Brazilian government official travels to D.C.
Symmy Larrat sat down with the Washington Blade on June 16
A transgender woman who is a member of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government said the storming of her country’s Congress, Presidential Palace and Supreme Court in January sparked outrage among many Brazilians.
Symmy Larrat, who is Brazil’s National Secretary for the Promotion and Defense of the Rights of LGBTQIA+ People, spoke exclusively with the Washington Blade on June 16. She was in D.C. to participate in an Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights conference.
Thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro on Jan. 8 stormed the country’s Congress, Presidential Palace and Supreme Court.
Da Silva took power a week before the insurrection. His predecessor, who did not accept last October’s election results, was in Florida when Da Silva took office.
Bolsonaro has since returned to Brazil.
“There are two aspects of Jan. 8. The first that scares me the most is people now think we won the election and we’re set and nobody protected themselves against what happened,” Larrat told the Blade, speaking through a Brazilian Embassy staffer who translated for her. “That moment signaled for all of us how absurd the extremists are. The other side doesn’t respect the democratic system.”
“On the other hand it showed Brazil that what we were denouncing as a very aggressive posture was a reality,” she added. “Brazilians are very patriotic and people felt offended by it.”
Larrat was born and raised in Belém, a city near the mouth of the Amazon River in the country’s Pará state.
Her parents were history teachers, and she said that’s why she “always had this questioning, curiosity” about different social justice movements. Larrat studied communications at the Federal University of Pará and her advocacy began with what she described to the Blade as “the democratization of communication structures and networks.”
Larrat later became an LGBTQ and intersex rights activist.
She organized Pride parades, helped establish NGOs and founded a shelter and community center for vulnerable LGBTQ and intersex people. Larrat told the Blade she responded to the lack of support for LGBTQ and intersex people in Belém and throughout the Brazilian Amazon.
“That’s what made me sense the necessity of justice and inequality because of the lack of support for LGBT people in the Amazon is just one of the things that we lack in the region,” she said. “It’s a region with a lack of information, technology. It’s a very colonized region in the worst sense of the word; not colonized only by the world, but also colonized by Brazil, the lack of policies for development.”
“It is a region that is very rich with a very poor population, so there is still an extractivist logic. that we develop consumer products and we feed the international regions, but we don’t benefit from what is created,” she added, noting it is often to travel from São Paulo to other countries than it is to fly from the country’s commercial capital to Belém and other cities in the Amazon. “The access is difficult. You don’t have access to medical care, information technology. There’s a lot of difficult access to information and information technology.”
Larrat said she knew she “had a feeling as a teenager that I was transgender, but at that time I didn’t see transgender people in places of power.”
Brazilian model Roberta Close, who is trans, was well-known throughout the country in the 1980s. Larrat said trans people at that time were prominent in Brazilian media and art, but “mostly in a pejorative way.”
“I had the conscience that I needed to study, to take myself out of this situation of vulnerability, so I had to study,” she said.
Larrat came out as trans when she was 30.
She was already active in various social movements, but she engaged in sex work “to survive.” Larrat said her family kicked her out of their home when she was a teenager, but she “reconnected with” her mother after she transitioned. Larrat told the Blade that her family now accepts her gender identity.
“The truth was what I was saying gave her (my mother) an understanding of my suffering and then she accompanied me with all my transitioning processes and that made her understand and she got scared about aggressions that I may suffer from society,” she said. “That’s when we reconnected, with her and with all of her family. Today they’re very accepting of it.”
Bolsonaro government was ‘terrifying’
Former President Dilma Rousseff’s government in 2013 invited Larrat to join the country’s Human Rights Ministry as an assistant for LGBTQ and intersex rights. Larrat joked she “was prostituting myself at night … and the next night I went to Brasília to go to the federal government.”
“That’s exactly what happened,” she said.
Larrat left the government once Rousseff was impeached in 2016.
Bolsonaro, a former congressman and former Brazilian Army captain, took office in 2019. He faced sharp criticism because of his rhetoric against LGBTQ and intersex Brazilians, women, people of African and indigenous descent and other groups.
The former president, among other things, encouraged fathers to beat their sons if they came out as gay. A Brazilian Federal Police investigator last August called for prosecutors to charge Bolsonaro with incitement for spreading false information about COVID-19 after he said people who are vaccinated against the virus are at increased risk for AIDS.
“It was terrifying to be there during the Bolsonaro government because we were seeing the public policies all being deconstructed, being destroyed,” said Larrat. “We knew the impacts of it on the lives of people, but it was a shock to all of us the institutionalization of hate speech.”
Larrat further stressed the majority of Brazilians do “not agree with the hate speech, but they are influenced by it.” Larrat also said this hate speech — “we have to protect our children. I can be who I am, but I cannot be it in front of children” — is part of a larger strategy to make Brazilians afraid of LGBTQ and intersex people.
“It’s speech that paints us as a menace and puts fear in people,” she said.
Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal on Friday banned Bolsonaro from running for office until 2030. The Associated Press noted five of the court’s seven judges agreed the former president used “official communications channels to promote his campaign” and spread disinformation about last year’s election.
Larrat admitted the 2022 campaign was “very difficult” for Brazil. She stressed Da Silva won, in part, because he believes in democracy.
“The power of dialogue that he has is impressive; the capacity to speak to everybody, to speak with both sides on each day,” said Larrat. “He negotiates with both sides. He’s a very good political articulator.”
Congresswomen Erika Hilton and Duda Salabert, who are both transgender, won their respective elections last October.
Larrat, who said she is friends with both of them, told the Blade trans Brazilians still lack representation in the country’s political process. Larrat, however, did stress Hilton and Salabert’s election is an important step forward for the country.
“It’s still very little,” said Larrat. “We went from nothing to something.”
South America
Argentina government dismisses transgender public sector employees
Country’s Trans Labor Quota Law enacted in 2021
Protests have broken out across Argentina in recent weeks after the dismissal of transgender people from their government jobs.
President Javier Milei’s action is in stark contract with the progress seen in 2023, where the government’s hiring of trans people increased by 900 percent within the framework of the Trans Labor Quota Law that had been in place since 2021.
Among those affected is Sofia Diaz, a “survivor” who shared her testimony with the Washington Blade hours after she traveled from Chaco Province to Buenos Aires to protest her dismissal.
Presentes, an LGBTQ news agency, reported the government dismissed more than 85 trans employees in less than two weeks.
Diaz, 49, holds a degree in combined arts. She joined the National Social Security Administration (ANSES) in 2022 under the Trans Labor Inclusion Law. The layoffs began in January and left many people feeling uncertain and anguished. It was her turn a few days ago.
Diaz in an interview recounted how the situation became progressively more complicated, with difficulties in accessing information about her employment status and the eventual confirmation of dismissals through WhatsApp messages. This government action, according to Diaz, violates the law.
“We were on a Friday, I think on March 24, in the office and we have a WhatsApp group of other colleagues from all over Argentina who entered through the trans labor quota and they tell us if we can get our pay stubs on the intranet,” Diaz recalled. “So, I tried to enter, I could not, I talked to two other colleagues and they told me no, they could not, and so we went to another person. He couldn’t either.”
“Some people told us that it could be a system error. Well, we were never calm, let’s say not how this issue of installing fear and the perversion with which they do it ends,” she added. “This sadism of … inflicting pain and speculating with your misfortune and so on … is something that characterizes Javier Milei’s government.”
Diaz recalled a list of those dismissed from the agency began to circulate from the union in the afternoon. A colleague passed it on to her, “and well, unfortunately I was also on that list.”
“At that moment the whole weekend went by with anguish, crying, and talking with other colleagues from other places, not only trans, but everyone, everyone and everyone,” she said. “On Monday when we went to try to enter, we could not enter with the biometric, which is the thumb we had to use every morning to enter.”
Despite the difficult moment through which she is going, the trans activist stressed to the Blade that she will continue protesting and will even sue the government because her dismissal is illegal and “violates the constitution itself.”
The LGBTQ community and its allies have mobilized and organized demonstrations, highlighting the importance of defending the rights won and fighting against discrimination and exclusion. Diaz emphasized the fight is not only for the people affected today, but also for future generations, saying the historical memory of the struggles for inclusion and social justice must be kept alive.
“The Argentine government thus faces a key challenge in human and labor rights, where public pressure and social mobilization can play a determining role in protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ people,” Diaz said.
South America
Daniel Zamudio murderer’s parole request denied
Raúl López Fuentes convicted of murdering gay man in Chilean capital in 2012
Chile’s Parole Commission on Tuesday rejected a request to allow one of the four men convicted of murdering Daniel Zamudio in 2012 to serve the remainder of his sentence outside of prison.
Raúl López Fuentes earlier this month asked the commission to release him on parole. Zamudio’s family and members of the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, a Chilean LGBTQ rights group, had gone to court to block the request.
Among the arguments put forward that influenced the commission’s decision is what Movilh categorized as his “high risk of recidivism, linked to the adherence of an antisocial behavior with a tendency to minimize his acts transgressing social norms.”
The commission pointed out that López has psychopathic traits because he is aware of the damage he did to Zamudio and his family.
“In addition, he maintains a high risk of violence, not being advisable to grant the benefit,” the report said.
Zamudio was a young Chilean man who became a symbol of the fight against homophobic violence in his country and around the world after López and three other young men with alleged ties to a neo-Nazi group beat him for several hours in Santiago’s San Borja Park on March 2, 2012. Zamudio succumbed to his injuries a few weeks later.
The attack sparked widespread outage in Chile and prompted a debate over homophobia in the country that highlighted the absence of an anti-discrimination law. Lawmakers in the months after Zamudio’s murder passed a law that bears Zamudio’s name.
López in 2013 received a 15-year prison sentence after he was convicted of killing Zamudio. Patricio Ahumada received a life sentence, while Alejandro Angulo Tapia is serving 15 years in prison. Fabían Mora Mora received a 7-year prison sentence.
Zamudio’s mother, Jacqueline Vera, exclusively told the Washington Blade after the commission rejected López’s request that “we as a family are calmer.”
“Even with my husband we were in a lot of pain at the beginning. It was like a blow of very strong emotions, so we tried to stay calm because we still had to solve the problem,” Vera said. “We had four days to solve it.”
López will have to serve the remaining three years of his sentence before his release.
“I will continue working to improve the Zamudio Law and so that this murderer does not leave prison because he is a danger to society, he does not represent repentance and people like this cannot be free,” she said. “For the same reason, we have to work so that hate crimes have life imprisonment and that is what we will concentrate on.”
South America
Man convicted of killing Daniel Zamudio in Chile seeks parole
Raúl López Fuentes in 2013 sentenced to 15 years in prison
One of the four men convicted of murdering a young gay man in the Chilean capital in 2012 is seeking parole.
Raúl López Fuentes in 2013 received a 15-year prison sentence after he was convicted of killing Daniel Zamudio.
Zamudio was a young Chilean man who became a symbol of the fight against homophobic violence in his country and around the world after López and three other young men with alleged ties to a neo-Nazi group beat him for several hours in Santiago’s San Borja Park on March 2, 2012. Zamudio succumbed to his injuries a few weeks later.
The attack sparked widespread outage in Chile and prompted a debate over homophobia in the country that highlighted the absence of an anti-discrimination law. Lawmakers in the months after Zamudio’s murder passed a law that bears Zamudio’s name.
Patricio Ahumada received a life sentence, while López and Alejandro Angulo Tapia are serving 15 years in prison. Fabían Mora Mora received a 7-year prison sentence.
López has asked the Seventh Santiago Guarantee Court to serve the last three years of his sentence on parole. Zamudio’s family and Jaime Silva, their lawyer who works with the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, oppose the request.
Movilh represented Zamudio’s family after his murder.
Zamudio’s mother, Jacqueline Vera, during an exclusive interview with the Washington Blade said López’s petition “provoked all the anguish, all the commotion of his time.”
“It was very cruel because in fact two days before we were at Daniel’s grave, where it was 12 years since his death and the beating,” said Vera. “He really does not deserve it.”
“We have gone through very difficult moments,” she added.
The mother, who later created a foundation to eradicate discrimination in Chile, was emphatic in indicating that she and her family “do not accept the release of this guy because he is a danger to society and a danger to ourselves.”
“At the last hearing where they were sentenced, they told us that we are going to remember them when they get out,” said Vera. “They threatened us with death. There is a video circulating on social networks where they were in front of me and they laughed and made fun of me. They told me that I remembered that I had three more children.”
Regarding the possibility that the Chilean justice system will allow López to serve the remaining three years of his sentence on parole, Vera said “with the benefits here in Chile, which is like a revolving door where murderers come and go, it can happen.”
“In any case, I don’t pretend, I don’t accept and I don’t want (López) to get out, I don’t want (López) to get out there,” she said. “We are fighting for him not to get out there because I don’t want him to get out there. And for me it is not like that, they have to serve the sentence as it stands.”
LGBTQ Chileans have secured additional rights since the Zamudio Law took effect. These include marriage equality and protections for transgender people. Advocacy groups, however, maintain lawmakers should improve the Zamudio Law.
“We are advocating for it to be a firmer law, with more strength and more condemnation,” said Vera.
When asked by the Washington Blade about what she would like to see improved, she indicated “the law should be for all these criminals with life imprisonment.”
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