BRAZIL RESISTS!

Robeyoncé Lima is the first trans lawyer from Pernambuco State, in Brazil. She is also “co-congressperson” from the same state, through the collective Juntas Co-Deputadas.

In this video, Robeyoncé reinforces the importance of LBGTI community to maintain the course of action in fighting for their rights, as well as to demand from public authorities for solutions that embraces the LGBTI community.

Maria das Graças Carvalho Dantas, also known as Maria Dantas, is a lawyer and social activist from Aracaju, Sergipe. She is the first Brazilian woman to be elected in the Spanish Parliament as deputy for the Left-Republican Party (ERC) of Catalunya.

In this video, Maria introduces her role in the Spanish Commission of Equality and mentions steps taken to work in favor of LGTBIQ+ rights. She also states the importance of fighting racism, fascism, and hate speech not only in Europe but worldwide.

Deize Tigrona is a singer and MC of funk carioca, a famous Brazilian genre, usually played at parties and festivals. She became a hit in the early 2000s, with her song "Injeção", which achieved such success that got mixed and sampled by international singers like Diplo and M.I.A. Recently, she started to perform again and released a song called "Vagabundo".

In this video, Deize talks aboutthe Brazilian funk music scene and the discrimination it faces. While touring in Europe, she explains how music producers explore funk music and why this genre suffers discrimination from society. Finally, she says that we must fight for the resistance of funk music.

James Naylor Green is an American LGBT activist, historian, and professor of Brazilian and Latin-American Studies at Brown University. He leads an international movement in the United States about Brazilian politics and is an expert on homosexuality in Brazil. He is the author of famous articles and books, such as "Além do Carnaval: a homossexualidade masculina no Brasil do século XX" and "Revolucionário e gay – a vida extraordinária de Herbert Daniel".

In this video, James Green highlights the gravity of the situation that the LGBT community in Brazil faces with the current administration in power, under the head of Jair Bolsonaro. He gives some examples of why the President is a threat to LGBT rights and asks for the international community to support the Brazilian LGBT movement.

Batekoo is a collective movement initiated in Salvador, Brazil, in 2014. It is an entertainment, culture, and information platform that focuses on the black LGBTQI+ community in Brazil. The group works to spread the cultural production of the Brazilian urban youth within and outside of the Country.

In this video, Eliabe Freitas and Mauricio Sacramento, who are part of Batekoo, share their views regarding the black LGBTQI+ community in Europe, while touring across the continent and reflect upon debates on gender issues there in comparison with Brazil.

Maju Giorgi is the founder and coordinator of Mães pela Diversidade, an initiative composed by mothers of LGBTI persons who fight for the rights of their children through the empowerment of their families. Maju has a gay son and she is ready to fight against any form of violence against him or any other LGBTI child.

Mães pela Diversidade was registered as an NGO in 2014 and is now composed by more than 2000 mothers spread all over the 27 Brazilian federal units. The mothers provide care to each other and use their universal love to deconstruct discrimination and prejudice. Fathers of LGBTI persons are also welcome, but the protagonist here is female. Mães pela Diversidade has become one of the most inspiring anti-discrimination movements across Brazil. In 2019, Mães was invited to open the São Paulo LGBTI Pride – the biggest in the world with 3 million participants.

Léo de Oliveira is the executive director of TODXS, the first Brazilian social start up that promotes LGBTI+ inclusion.  The organization develops projects focused on engagement, research, education and protection issues. With an innovative model, TODXS believes in the power of data collection and its processing in order to come up with specific actions based on specific needs. The organization engages with three important sectors in the fight against LGBTphobia in Brazil: Society, Government and Business. 

Deborah Sabara is a Brazilian travesti woman, human rights activist, and Coordinator of Associação Gold. She has not only worked in the third sector but also in the public sector, with experience at the State Legislative Assembly and the City of Vitória, Espírito Santo. In this video, she calls attention to the concerning increase of trans women living on streets in the southeast of Brazil.

Associação Gold (an abbreviation for 'group, proud, freedom and dignity') is a not for profit organization founded in 2005 in Vitória-ES. It develops different human rights projects, with a special focus on LGBT issues. Gold's mission is to promote active citizenship and protect the rights of LGBT people.

Paulo Iotti is a Brazilian gay activist, lawyer, director of the Group of Lawyers for Sexual Diversity and Gender (GADvS), and member of the Sexual Diversity and Gender Commission of the Brazilian Bar Association, São Paulo. Iotti holds a PhD in Constitutional Law and he is one of the most prestigious experts on LGBTI rights in Brazil. In this video, he talks about the importance of criminalizing homo-transphobia as a crime of racism.

GADvS was founded in 2010 and is mostly composed by top lawyers specialised in LGBTI rights. Its main objective is to use the judicial system to fight against homo-transphobia and guarantee the rights of LGBTI persons.

Carina Calabria  is a human rights activist and has a PhD at the University of Manchester. She was a researcher of the project "A Sociology of the Transnational Constitution", funded by the European Research Council with an advanced grant. In this video, Carina analyses some implications of the death of the River Doce in Brazil, bringing us a reflection about human rights, environmental rights and development. 

Her PhD addressed the efficacy of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, with a focus on cases concerning indigenous rights,  amnesty laws, and prison system. In the last years, Carina engaged in socio-legal research and carried out fieldwork in different countries in Latin America interviewing a great array of legal actors. She was a Visiting Professional at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights during the first semester of 2015.

Maria Rehder

Maria Rehder is the project coordinator of the Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education and vice-president of ABPEducom. The Brazilian Campaign is considered the most comprehensive and plural coordination in the field of education in Brazil. In this video, Maria addresses the concerning Brazilian educational directives that take 'gender' and 'sexual orientation' issues out of the school curriculum.

Maria is graduated in journalism, specialized in Educomunication and received a master degree from the European inter-university centre for human rights and democratisation/ University of Padova, Italy. Apart from her activism in Brazil, Maria has worked with international cooperation and human rights in East-Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya and Botswana. 

Brazilian Campaign for the Right to Education

The National Campaign for the Right to Education (Campaign) appeared in 1999, driven by a number of civil society organizations would participate in the World Education Forum in Dakar (Senegal) in 2000. The goal was to add different political forces, prioritizing actions mobilization, political pressure and media in favor of the defense and promotion of educational rights.

Today is considered the most comprehensive and plural coordination in the field of education in Brazil, establishing itself as a network that links hundreds of groups and entities distributed across the country, including school communities, social movements, trade unions, national non-governmental organizations and international foundations, university, student, youth and community groups, as well as thousands of citizens who believe in building a country fair and sustainable through the provision of a quality public education.

The mission of the Campaign is to work for the realization and expansion of educational policies so that all persons have guaranteed their right to a public education, free, inclusive, secular, and quality in Brazil.