On Tuesday (29), Brazilian Federal Deputy Erika Hilton (Socialism and Liberty Party) and around 100 other parliamentarians and 50 civil organizations denounced to the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Donald Trump’s government for transphobia.
The complaint cites a decree issued by the Republican president shortly after taking office in January of this year, which does not recognize the gender identity of trans people in the United States. The measure restricts the category “sex” to biological classification and does not include the aspect of gender identity in federal documents.
“As of today, the US government policy is that there are only two genders: male and female,” Trump said in his inauguration speech on Capitol Hill on January 20. The decree aims to “restore biological truth” and is also part of the principle the president defends, which says that “federal funds should not be used to promote gender ideology.”
At the beginning of April, the US ignored the Brazilian documents and registered Hilton as male when issuing a diplomatic visa for an academic conference. The parliamentarian was going to the country to take part in the lecture “Diversity and Democracy”, alongside other Brazilian authorities at the Brazil Conference, organized by the Brazilian community at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After the incident, Erika Hilton canceled her trip.
According to the complaint sent to the UN, the US decree “disrespects her [Hilton’s] status as a parliamentarian, in the diplomatic exercise of her political activities, and her identity as a Black trans woman, in addition to aggravating her exposure to institutional discrimination and transphobic violence, and uncovers a systematic violation by the US government targeting a specific group.”
The group of parliamentarians and organizations also denounced the case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the main body of the Organization of American States (OAS), for the immediate correction of the diplomatic visa granted to Hilton to include the female gender in the “sex” category.
In this second complaint, the organizations and parliamentarians argue that it is necessary to “safeguard the right to identity and the physical integrity of Federal Deputy Erika Hilton when she enters the United States as a parliamentarian on a diplomatic mission, representing the Chamber of Deputies, respecting her female gender identity, in accordance with official Brazilian documents.”
