Brazil’s Sixth-Largest City Elects Its First Trans City Councilor, Duda Salabert

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Belo Horizonte, the bustling capital of Brazil’s large Minas Gerais state, elected its first trans candidate, teacher Duda Salabert (PDT), to the City Council with a record vote – the most voted city councilor in the history of this state. She secured over 37,000 votes according to the TSE, taking the first position in the election for the City Council of Belo Horizonte, which has 41 seats.

In 2018, when she ran for election to the Senate for the State of Minas Gerais, for PSOL, she had collected over 350,000 votes. In 2020, the number of trans candidacies in Brazil tripled and they were elected with successful votes in the municipal assemblies in at least three Brazilian capitals.

In São Paulo – which in 2018 elected its first trans state deputy – Erika Hilton (PSOL) was elected the first trans woman to the City Council, while Thammy Miranda (PL), was the first trans man to become a city councilor in the capital. In Aracaju, Linda Brasil (PSOL) was also elected with the highest number of votes in the history of the capital of Sergipe.

According to Duda, the main motivation in politics is to help build a management model that privileges the groups she represents and the banners she fights for. “The ideal city listens to the voice of social movements. And it has respect for animals, LGBT people, blacks and women. These four agendas have never been valued by any administration,” she said in an interview last September. Her campaign for the City Council used no printed material, as a symbol of commitment to the environment.

Before starting the gender transition process, Duda Salabert built a career in the capital of Minas Gerais giving literature classes to high school students. But six years ago, since she began to socially appear as a woman, job offers have been scarce.

“I’m at the height of my profession, invitations from other schools were supposed to pour in. If I were fired, it would be difficult for another school to hire me. People don’t see me as a teacher, but as a prostitute, since 90 percent of transsexual women in Brazil are in prostitution. This is a reflection of transphobia in society,” she said at the time.

Duda said that her students were easy to accept the disclosure of her transsexuality, unlike parents who do not interact with her on a daily basis. “Last year [2018], a mother came to speak with the owner of the school demanding an explanation as to why her daughter was being taught by a drug dealer. I’m neither a prostitute nor a drug dealer. But it must be very embarrassing for a traditional family from Minas Gerais to hear their daughter say that the person she admires most is a transvestite. I can’t do anything about it, can I?” said the activist, who regards her profession as a cause. “I dream of changing the world through education.”

In 2016, she founded the NGO Transvest, in which volunteer teachers give preparation lessons for the university entrance examination to transsexuals in Belo Horizonte.
“The school is a setting of violence, hatred and intolerance towards transsexuals. The vast majority of transsexuals do not complete high school. Our educational model is broken because it excludes diversity”.

She claims that the country has never had a consistent plan in the area, “not even in the PT governments”. In her opinion, the Bolsonaro government has adopted a mercantilist approach to education, underpinned by movements that encourage patrolling within schools.

“They want to blame teachers for Brazil’s educational failure. I want students to think differently from me, get me out of the comfort zone. Knowledge is built on differences. I just don’t want them to film me in class,” she said.

At the time of the interview, Duda had recently left the PSOL, accusing the party of transphobia. “The PSOL is crucial for democracy, but its structure mirrors the inequality in the country,” explained the teacher. At the time of her disaffiliation, the party released a note disagreeing with Duda’s claim, although it recognized that it was not immune to “structural demonstrations from our society”.

The transsexual activist felt discriminated against by the amount of resources allocated by the party to her Senate campaign. “I am the third most voted woman in the history of Minas Gerais. I had no structure. I campaigned virtually by myself. The PSOL did not do me any favors. I disputed and won the preliminaries to run for the Senate,” said Duda.

Soon thereafter, young PDT leaders launched a campaign to incorporate the teacher. In a meeting with Ciro Gomes, she heard from the third placed in the 2018 presidential election that the party is waiting for her “with the red carpet spread out” – and accepted the affiliation, which now directed her to the city’s City Council.

Source: El Pais