Nikolas Ferreira will respond for referring to the trans congresswoman as “he”

Federal deputy Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG) will answer for racial slurs against also deputy Duda Salabert (PDT-MG), who is transgender, that is, a biological man who declares himself a woman. The decision was published on Tuesday (7) by the Court of Justice of Minas Gerais (TJMG), which accepted an appeal by the Public Ministry of Minas Gerais (MPMG). If convicted, the parliamentarian could face up to three years in prison.

The parliamentarian filed a criminal complaint for the fact that Nikolas referred to her as “he” in an interview given in December 2020. “He is a man. That’s what’s on his certificate, regardless of what he thinks it is”, said the deputy at the time.

At the beginning of the process, the Justice decided that the 1st Criminal Jurisdictional Unit of the District of Belo Horizonte should judge the case on the understanding that the complaint did not fall under the crime of qualified racial injury. The MPMG, however, appealed on the grounds that the Federal Supreme Court (STF) equated racial injury with the legal concept of racism and was granted.

In June 2019, the STF voted overwhelmingly to apply the concept of racism to “homotransphobia”, discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Already in October 2021, the Court decided that homophobic offenses also become imprescriptible and non-bailable.

The parliamentarian sent the following press release:

“We still haven’t had access to the decision that judged a conflict of jurisdiction between instances. It is important to note that the court has not made any assessment of what I am being accused of. The process is at the beginning and regardless of where it falls I am calm to defend myself, because I believe in justice and I know that I have never committed any crime against anyone, having only made use of my freedom of expression”.

Councilor of Niterói has already been condemned for similar speech

In June last year, the councilor of Niterói (RJ) Douglas Gomes (PL) was judicially condemned for racial injury against the transgender councilor Benny Briolly (PSOL) for having referred to the parliamentarian with words in the male gender. In the decision, by the 2nd Criminal Court of Niterói, the penalty initially applied was one year and seven months in open prison. As there was no use of violence and the sentence was less than four years, the judge replaced prison with community service.