Brazil’s third-largest metropolitan area takes a stand: gender-neutral language banned in schools

The City Council of Belo Horizonte, the sixth-largest city in Brazil and home to the third-largest metropolitan area with 6 million residents, has enacted a law restricting gender-neutral language use in public and private basic education schools.

This decision was officially documented in the city’s Official Gazette, marking its enactment.

The initiative for the law came from Nikolas Ferreira, a federal deputy from Belo Horizonte, who was a city councilor when he introduced the proposal in February 2021.

It received approval on April 24, 2023.

However, the mayor, Fuad Noman, vetoed the proposal in June. City councilors overturned this veto on August 8.

According to the law, schools in Belo Horizonte must adhere to teaching language guidelines based on national education standards, the Portuguese Orthographic Vocabulary (Volp), and the grammar rules from the latest orthographic reform in 2009.

Schools that fail to comply will face administrative penalties as determined by the city’s executive branch.

On his profile on X (formerly Twitter), Deputy Nikolas Ferreira expressed his satisfaction with the law’s enactment, stating his hope that this decision will serve as a model for the rest of Brazil.

He emphasized the importance of respecting the Portuguese language.

Earlier in February, a Poder360 survey revealed that, over four years, 58 legislative proposals at state and district levels aimed to ban gender-neutral language.

By the time of the survey, 20 of these initiatives were introduced by members of the PL party, the same party affiliated with former President Jair Bolsonaro and Nikolas Ferreira.

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