Commentary: Bolsonaro's hateful homophobia echoes here even more than his dimwit denialism does

[Judi Lynn]

WLRN 91.3 FM | By Tim Padgett
Published November 25, 2022 at 9:50 AM EST

COMMENTARY: More Americans are rejecting the kind of election denialism Brazil's president is pushing — but are more embracing his brand of homophobic cruelty?

I was tempted this week to write about right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro suddenly claiming, like a fuming 4-year-old, that the reelection bid he lost last month, in a perfectly legitimate vote, was stolen from him because the ballot-counting machines were somehow defective.

But I won’t. Every election equipment expert on Earth has quickly dismissed Bolsonaro’s assertion as a lame lie on par with the demented denialism we’re finally tuning out here in the U.S. So it would be an epic waste of time.

Still, I’m glad Bolsonaro diverted our attention to Brazil at this particular moment, because Americans, especially Floridians, should shift their uneasy gaze there for a while. Not because of Bolsonaro’s election lunacy, but because of another, deadlier legacy that can at least be partly attributed to his shamelessly — if not viciously — homophobic presidency. And it’s one that resonates in the U.S. as we try to process yet another hate-driven massacre at an LGBTQ establishment.

Brazil has long been one of the world’s most lethal places for LGBTQ people — and is the most lethal for transgender people. That hasn’t changed since Bolsonaro took office in 2019, even though that same year Brazil’s Supreme Court criminalized homophobic and transphobic acts. In 2020 Brazil saw 175 murders of trans people, one of the highest numbers in the country’s history. Last year that dipped to 125, but it still led the world — and was hardly a stat to take comfort in since the nation with the second-worst trans-homicide toll, Mexico, registered 65.

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https://www.wlrn.org/commentary/2022-11-25/bolsonaros-hateful-homophobia-echoes-here-more-than-his-dimwit-denialism-does