Brazil’s LGBT+ community is fighting back after the election of far-right ‘proud homophobe’ Jair Bolsonaro.
Messages of support have flooded social media after the demagogue, who has said he would be “incapable of loving a gay son” and would “prefer that he die in an accident,” won 55 percent of the vote on Sunday (October 28) to beat leftist opponent Fernando Haddad and become President.
Pabllo Vittar, a drag queen and singer who has collaborated with stars like Major Lazer and Charli XCX, posted a rainbow to Instagram, with the caption: “I resist.”
Just as it was after the election of President Donald Trump in the US, “resist” has been a popular rallying cry, as has “Ele Nao E Meu Presidente,” which means: ‘He is not my president.’
Other posts reimagine the country’s flag as a rainbow one, featuring the words “proteja seus amigos”—’protect your friends’—as a reference to those groups such as women, indigenous people, asylum seekers who have previously been the target of Bolsonaro’s aggressive rhetoric.
The phrases “ninguém solta a mao de ninguém” and “no nos soltaremos las manos”—which both roughly translate to ‘we will not let go of each other’s hands’—have also been circulating to urge intersectional solidarity in the face of hatred.
José Miguel Vivanco, Human Rights Watch’s director of the Americas, said: “Brazil has independent judges, dedicated prosecutors and public defenders, courageous journalists and a vibrant civil society.
“Human Rights Watch will join them in resisting any attempt to erode the rights and democratic institutions that Brazil has built with so much effort over the past three decades.”
Amnesty International’s Americas director, Erika Guevara-Rosas, said: “The president-elect has campaigned with an openly anti-human-rights agenda and frequently made discriminatory statements about different groups of society.
“His election as Brazil´s president could pose a huge risk to Indigenous Peoples and quilombolas, traditional rural communities, LGBTI people, black youth, women, activists and civil society organisations, if his rhetoric is transformed in public policy.
“With the electoral process now over, we all face the challenge of protecting human rights for everyone in Brazil.”
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