A Black transgender singer and songwriter from Brazil on Nov. 13 won three Latin Grammy Awards.

Liniker, who is from Araraquara, a city in São Paulo State, won for Best Portuguese Language Song for her song “Veludo Marrom,” Best Portuguese-Language Urban Performance for her song “Caju” from her sophomore album of the same title, and Best Portuguese Language Contemporary Pop Album for “Caju.”

She accepted the awards during the Latin Grammy Awards ceremony that took place in Las Vegas. Liniker also performed.

“I’ve been writing since I was 16. And writing, and poetry, have been my greatest form of existence. It’s where I find myself; where I celebrate so many things I experience,” said Liniker as she accepted her first Latin Grammy on Nov. 13. “And being a composer … Being a trans composer in Brazil — a country that kills us — is extremely difficult.”

Liniker in 2022 became the first openly trans woman to win a Latin Grammy.

The results of Chile’s presidential election will likely determine the future of LGBTQ rights in the country.

While Congresswoman Emilia Schneider, the first transgender woman elected to Congress, managed to retain her seat on Sunday, the runoff to determine who will succeed outgoing President Gabriel Boric will take place on Dec. 14 and will pit two diametrically opposed candidates against each other: the far-right José Antonio Kast and Communist Jeannette Jara.

Schneider, an emblematic figure in the LGBTQ rights movement and one of the most visible voices on trans rights in Latin America, won reelection in a polarized environment. Human rights organizations see her continued presence in Congress as a necessary institutional counterweight to the risks that could arise if the far-right comes to power.

Kast v. Jara

The presidential race has become a source of concern for LGBTQ groups in Chile and international observers.

Kast, leader of the Republican Party, has openly expressed his rejection of gender policies, comprehensive sex education, and reforms to anti-discrimination laws.

Throughout his career, he has supported conservative positions aligned with sectors that question LGBTQ rights through rhetoric that activists describe as stigmatizing. Observers say his victory in the second-round of the presidential election that will take place on Dec. 14 could result in regulatory and cultural setbacks.

Jara, who is the presidential candidate for the progressive Unidad por Chile coalition, on the other hand has publicly upheld her commitment to equal rights. She has promised to strengthen mechanisms against discrimination, expand health policies for trans people, and ensure state protection against hate speech.

For Schneider, this new legislative period is shaping up to be a political and symbolic challenge.

Her work has focused on combating gender violence, promoting reform of the Zamudio Law, the country’s LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination and hate crimes law named after Daniel Zamudio, a gay man murdered in Santiago, the Chilean capital, in 2012, and denouncing transphobic rhetoric in Congress and elsewhere.

Schneider’s continued presence in Congress is a sign of continuity in the defense of recently won rights, but also a reminder of the fragility of those advances in a country where ideological tensions have intensified.

LGBTQ organizations point out that Schneider will be key to forging legislative alliances in a potentially divided Congress, especially if Kast consolidates conservative support.

A gay man who ran for the Argentine Senate lost in the country’s midterm elections that took place on Sunday.

Congressman Esteban Paulón, a long-time LGBTQ rights activist who has represented Santa Fe province in the country’s House of Deputies since 2023, ran to represent Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, as a member of the Movimiento de Jublidaos y Juventud or “Movement of Young People and Retirees” party.

Paulón’s party received .6 percent of the total votes in the city.

“A new space that wants to be part of the construction of a future of development, equality, and growth for Argentina was born today in Buenos Aires,” said Paulón on Monday in a social media post. 

“I want to think all of the residents of Buenos Aires who put their confidence in the citizen movement and who think another way to do politics is possible,” he added. “We are not here to pass through, we are here to continue growing. We’re convinced that Argentina needs a better approach.”

The elections took place two years after President Javier Milei took office.

Milei has enacted a series of anti-LGBTQ policies that include the closure of Argentina’s National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Racism and dismissing transgender people who the previous government hired under the Trans Labor Quota Law, which set aside at least 1 percent of public sector jobs for trans people. Paulón earlier this year filed a criminal complaint against Milei after he linked the LGBTQ community to pedophilia and made other homophobic and transphobic comments during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The Associated Press notes Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party on Sunday won 14 seats in the Senate and 64 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, which is the lower house of Congress. The election took place against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s promised $40 billion bailout for Argentina if Milei won.

Paulón, for his part, will remain in the Chamber of Deputies.