Justice fines journalist who called trans “dude”

The São Paulo Court of Justice sentenced journalist Madeleine Lacsko, a columnist for People’s Gazetteto pay a fine of BRL 3,000 for having used the term “expensive” to refer to influencer Rebecca Gaia, who is a transgender woman.

The decision, taken in the last week of May, is based on the assumption that “face” was used as slang, but there is no objective proof that this was the journalist’s intention. In July 2021, in a discussion with Rebecca on social media, Madeleine introduced a response to the influencer with the phrase “Hello, man!”. “Cara”, in the Portuguese language, is synonymous with “dear”, which casts doubt on the intended meaning.

In Brazilian law, there is the legal principle of the presumption of innocence: in case of doubt, the defendant should always be favored. The decision, however, states emphatically that “the respondent called the applicant ‘man’ deliberately using the male gender inserted in this expression, with the intention of offending and discriminating against her ‘as if she were less of a woman'”.

In addition, the decision is based on the assumption that the slang term “guy” can only be used to refer to men. Although the expression is more commonly used among men, there are social contexts in which the use of “face” among women is considered normal.

In the discussion, Rebecca called Madeleine “racist” and “transphobic”. As these two types of prejudice fall under the Racism Law, the journalist sued the influencer for moral damages, as she tried to impute crimes to him. In December 2022, a court decision condemned Rebecca to pay a fine in the same amount that is now required of Madeleine, R$ 3,000.

The current decision, which changes that of December, results from an appeal filed by the influencer. Rebecca won a partial victory: as the Justice saw transphobia in Madeleine’s publication, the accusation of “transphobic” no longer fits into moral damage – Rebecca will only have to pay the R$ 1,500 reais for the false accusation of racism, and not the R$ 3,000 predicted earlier. In the case of Madeleine, the sentence of a fine of R$ 3,000 is valid.

With the compensation between the amounts owed by each one, the journalist is condemned to pay R$ 1,500.00 as a form of compensation for the alleged crime of transphobia. There are still resources from both parties.