Brazil's Rising Right Pushes Back Against LGBT Openness

Brazil is as ambivalent as other countries in Latin America when it comes to LGBT rights. 

Its reputation as a friendly country has something to it: recognition of same-sex marriage, plenty of queer artists and a vibrant gay culture in some of its main cities. In recent days, however, the country has seen a backlash against sexual diversity, as a queer museum project was cancelled and a ban on conversion therapy overturned.

Brazilian judge Waldemar de Carvalho issued a ruling to approve gay conversion therapy in Brazil, after it was banned for nearly 20 years, as he backed a psychologist who had her licence revoked for offering conversion therapy. The psychologist, Rozangela Justino, is an evangelical Christian and has called homosexuality "a disease".

PRI reports that "the growing power of evangelical Christian groups is fueling prejudice and intolerance in the country’s political, professional and cultural circles. Increasingly, those outside of the heteronormative or religious mainstream are becoming targets for intolerance". 

Indeed, these are worrying news coming out of Brazil, where citizens have started to shift to the right, prompted by growing discontent amidst a climate of recession, crime, and general apathy over the political system. 

The left-leaning Workers' Party spent 13 years in power. And as Julia Blunck writes at Prospect Magazine, "After four consecutive defeats on a Presidential level, the Brazilian right-wing parties had shifted into a much more aggressive beast. It had successfully associated social justice rhetoric with the corruption of the Worker’s Party". 

What happens next is anyone's guess, as it is inextricably linked with the country's protracted political crisis. Let's just hope that LGBT groups hang in and defend their rights in the meantime.