Agência Brasil publishes text with neutral language – 01/24/2023 – Politics

Agência Brasil, linked to EBC (Empresa Brasil de Comunicação), published on its portal a report that used neutral language —employed with the intention of including non-binary, gender-fluid or transgender people who do not fit the gender pattern.

The use of language on the government’s public communication network occurred in a report entitled “Elected parliamentarians meet for the first time in Brasília”.

The text reports on the activities of the 1st Meeting of LGBT+elects, held over the weekend in Brasília, with the aim of bringing together LGBT+ congressmen elected to the Chamber and state assemblies.

At the end of the report, the author explains that she used neutral language at the request of the parliamentarians interviewed. “At the request of the elected parliamentarians, the reporter used the neutral gender in the construction of sentences”, she says.

“Discussing the challenges of the LGBTQIA+ community. This was the objective of the 1st Meeting of LGBT+ voters held on January 20 and 21 in Brasilia. The event brought together parliamentarians elected to the Chamber of Deputies and also to the State Legislative Assemblies. meeting precedes the National Day of Trans Visibility, remembered on January 29”, says an excerpt from the report.

“Federal deputy Duda Salabert, elected by the Minas Gerais PDT, is one of the two elected transgender parliamentarians who will act in the National Congress and who was at the event. The literature teacher was the most voted councilwoman in Belo Horizonte, in the 2020 elections , and now takes on an even greater challenge: taking the guidelines defended by the community to the Chamber”, continues the text.

In neutral language, the generic masculine is avoided. The word “all”, for example, is spelled as “todes”.

Neutral language is not unprecedented in the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) government. In several ministerial inaugurations, the word “todes” was used.

On January 2, for example, the Minister of Institutional Relations, Alexandre Padilha, began his first speech with “Good afternoon to all, to all and to all” and was applauded by the audience. The expression was also used by the announcer at the event that swore in Fernando Haddad as Minister of Finance.

The use of neutral language, for example, is the target of criticism from former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and supporters.

The report by Agência Brasil reported that 79 transsexual and transvestite candidates competed for vacancies in the Chamber and in state assemblies in 2022. Of the total, four were elected (two for Congress and two for state assemblies), in addition to an intersex state deputy.

One of the main topics discussed at the event, according to the text, was violence against the LGBTQIA+ community.

The report also features testimonials from elected transsexual federal deputy Erika Hilton (PSOL-SP) and elected intersex state deputy Carolina Iara (PSOL-SP).

The event also had the participation of Symmy Larra, nominated for the Ministry of Human Rights’ Secretariat for the Promotion and Defense of the Rights of LGBTQIA+ People.