Lula government event on crimes against transgender exposes dubious data

The Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship launched this Thursday (26), through the National Secretariat for the Rights of LGBTQIA+ People inaugurated by the Lula government, the dossier “Murders and violence against Brazilian transvestites and transsexuals: 2022”. At the event, data from the National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals (ANTRA) were presented, whose statistical accuracy has been the subject of contestation.

According to the organization, Brazil is the “country that most kills trans people” in the world. The dossier points out that there were 131 homicides of transsexuals and transvestites in Brazil in 2022, of which 130 were female trans people and 1 male trans person. In 2021, the total number had been 140.

Article of People’s Gazette signed by columnist Eli Vieira in 2021 shows how questionable is the scientific rigor of the dossier published by ANTRA, which has annual recurrence. Several errors raised by the text were repeated in the dossier released this Thursday.

The allegation that the country holds the record for murders of trans people in the world, for example, takes into account only the absolute numbers, without weighing them with the total population and the proportion of homicides in each country, and ignores the fact that that many countries do not even produce reliable statistics on the subject. Another problem pointed out by the article is the lack of transparency of the figures released by ANTRA, which provides few details about data collection and research methodology.

At this Thursday’s event organized by the Lula government, ANTRA repeated again a datum of dubious origin: that the life expectancy of transsexuals in Brazil is 35 years. The origin of the data is mysterious, but it has been repeated since 2013 and reproduced internationally by the media.

ANTRA’s Secretary of Political Articulation, Bruna Benevides, took advantage of her speech at the event to criticize the Bolsonaro government. “We saw the omission of mentioning LGBTQIA + guidelines at the UN and Mercosur,” she said. “The diversity committees in the Ministries of Education and Human Rights were excluded, the mention of the word ‘gender’ was prohibited in Itamaraty, and the determination was made that biological sex should be used as a criterion by 2024.”

According to her, the “anti-trans agenda” began to unite antagonistic groups in society, such as “religious fundamentalists” and feminists. “There is a group of feminists who are located in the progressive left field who are transexcluding and who are dialoguing with these groups. They are partnering against the rights of trans people.”

Symmy Larrat, secretary for the Rights of LGBTQIA+ People in the Lula government, stated that in the four years of Bolsonaro’s administration “there was an immense persecution of gender identities”, and that bringing trans agendas at the beginning of the current administration “is much more than symbolic ”. “It shows how daring we want to be over these four years”, she concluded.