Government ordinance calls SUS “male and racist” and preaches atheist state

An ordinance of the Lula government (PT) signed by Nísia Trindade, Minister of Health, with the alleged objective of promoting gender and race equity says that the division of labor implemented in the Unified Health System (SUS) is “male and racist “.

The document, which has been in force since the last 7th, also confuses the secularity of the State with secularism, calling for a policy “independent of religious principles”. Secularity is a constitutional principle according to which the State must be neutral in relation to religions, without favoring or curbing any of them. Secularism, in turn, is the idea that religious views should be excluded from public debate and allowed only in the private sphere, which is unconstitutional because, in practice, it privileges atheism.

Afonso Celso de Oliveira, specialist in Civil Law and member of the Brazilian Institute of Law and Religion (IBDR), explains that the State “can neither favor nor hinder” the practice of any religion. “Article 19 of the Constitution, in its first paragraph, emphasizes that ‘the Union, the States, the Federal District and the municipalities are forbidden’ not only to ‘establish religious cults or churches’ – that is, to give preference to a form of religion , subsidize it –, as it is also forbidden to ’embarrass their operation’. That is, the opposite is also forbidden.

Oliveira also recalls that “the separation between State and religion does not mean that the State should be atheist or agnostic”. “Through an ordinance, a pen that is unconstitutional, they are clearly demonstrating a secularist position that is to try to form an atheist State, an agnostic State”, he criticizes.

For lawyer Miguel Vidigal, director of the Union of Catholic Jurists of São Paulo, the ordinance is yet another recent political initiative to “remove more and more the influence of religion in public life in the country”. “It is a contradiction, insofar as a plural and democratic society, as these movements claim to aim for, should, on the contrary, try to encompass all or at least a large part of the principles followed by all our citizens”, he comments.

For him, the “atheistic and persecutory wave” is not new and “has its birthplace in the French Revolution, which, in the name of ‘freedom, equality and fraternity’, sent people to the guillotine without the slightest scruples”. “The pages of history teach us that whenever religion was put aside, dictatorship was installed. This happened in Ancient Rome, it happened in Nazi Germany, it happened and still happens in communist countries… The hope that remains is that Brazilians will know how to put an end to this dictatorial anti-religious wave and we will once again receive the good influences that religion has brought us until today.”

Ordinance for the SUS radicalizes in the woke speech

The ordinance is, so far, the measure of the Ministry of Health that most radicalizes the woke speech. Terms from the new identity culture that did not appear even in previous PT governments are used profusely. For right-wing parliamentarians who have been attacking the text, there is a risk of institutionalizing gender ideology in the SUS.

Some excerpts are characterized by a level of intellectual indigence unheard of in official documents, with abstruse writing and full of ideological arguments. For example:

• “A person’s identification is based exclusively on their gender statement, with a range of known identities. They can be declared in different ways. It is understood that a cisgender person is one who identifies with the gender assigned to him. assigned at birth, while a transgender person is one who identifies with the opposite gender to that assigned at birth. This is the case, for example, of a transgender woman, who was assigned a male identity, but who identifies as a woman .”
• “Gender is one of the principles of social organization: it organizes identities and self-concepts (e.g. self-perception of health); structures social interactions (e.g. discrimination, care practices); organizes social structures and underpins the distribution of power and resources (e.g. control over work) (Wharton, 2009). It refers to behaviors, performativities and roles that a given society, at a given moment, considers coherent for men and women. These roles are socially constructed, and hegemonically sustained by a perspective biological. It can be said that gender is the way ‘in which the sexes [mulher ou homem] are thought of and how sexual qualities come to be applied to other formulations’ (Strathern, 2014).”

The document may also threaten the freedom of expression of health professionals in their work environment, by establishing as a SUS guideline “adopting language that promotes equity” and avoiding “macho and patriarchal terms” in the institutional routine of government health establishments. Another guideline is that the SUS must “contribute to confronting cultural machismo”. The text does not define what cultural machismo is.

In a recent Instagram post, federal deputy Chris Tonietto (PL-RJ) stated that the Ministry of Health’s ordinance “institutionalizes gender ideology throughout Brazil”. “The tax payer’s money will be used through this ordinance to propagate gender ideology throughout Brazil. one of the biggest aberrations I’ve ever seen”, he commented.