By Letícia Alves
Legislative initiatives against gender ideology are emerging all over Brazil, especially against using neutral language and prohibiting gender transition in children.
Previously treated as a “conspiracy theory,” gender ideology has taken over the streets, schools, hospitals, books and movies, and even public bathrooms.
As could not be otherwise, it is also in the political debate and became the protagonist of more than 60 bills presented in 2023 in legislative houses all over Brazil.
The attempt of senators, state and federal deputies, and city councilors is to avoid misrepresenting the concepts of men and women, especially in children’s education.
The Folha outlet first published this survey.
Most bills want to prohibit using neutral language in educational institutions and public administration.
It is worth noting that the Lula government has adopted this in its official events and the Agência Brasil.
This month the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) said it would start using the so-called neutral language in its institutional portals on the internet.
The argument of the project’s authors is unquestionable: words like “todes” and “elu/delu” do not exist in Portuguese, which already provides for masculine terms as neutral.
Many bills aim to prohibit or at least hinder minors’ access to medical treatments for gender transition.
Currently, at least 280 minors are undergoing hormonal procedures to block puberty and transition to the opposite sex at the University of São Paulo’s Hospital das Clínicas.
Of these, 100 are children between the ages of four and 12, and the rest from 13 to 17. This is because, with parental permission, even such young children, unable to make such a serious decision, are accepted.
Senator Magno Malta, the author of one of these projects, proposes fines and imprisonment for those who submit a child or adolescent to surgical intervention or hormonal and psychological treatment related to sex change or transsexualization.
To BSM, the parliamentarian said: “Gender reassignment in a child is an absurdity of the absurd.
That is why I submitted Bill n⁰ 501/2023, which aims to hold accountable those who encourage children to sex change at an age without the maturity of choice about something often irreversible, which may generate regrets in the future.”
He also said that he believes that the growing number of projects on gender ideology is “related to an expressive number of parliamentarians who defend: God, Homeland, Family, and Freedom.”
Congressman Kim Kataguiri is also one of the authors of projects with this theme.
He says he wants to “remove from the classroom radical ideologies, which see in the student an opportunity to exercise indoctrination and restore the school’s task of teaching useful and serious content.”
Some projects want to prohibit the following:
- The teaching of subjects related to “gender diversity” in schools;
- The participation of trans athletes in sports competitions, especially trans women (who were born male and therefore had superior physical strength) against biological women;
- Use of female bathrooms by “men who feel like women” or the implementation of unisex bathrooms
On the last Women’s Day, Federal Congressman Nikolas Ferreira became one of the spokespersons for the issue by putting on a blond wig and saying that “men who feel like women” are taking over the space of biological women in society.
The most-voted parliamentarian in Minas Gerais now faces a transphobia charge that could cost him his mandate.
Although the massive presentation of projects of this kind is positive, it is worth noting that they are unlikely to be approved in the thematic committees and the plenary.
Even if they are, in the case of the House of Representatives and Senate projects, they would probably be vetoed by Lula or overturned by the Federal Supreme Court (STF).
With information from BSM