Trans tyranny reigns in Brazil

What on Earth is going on in Brazil? Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that a 34-year-old veterinary student, Isadora Borges, was being prosecuted by the federal government for acknowledging that biological sex exists. And last week, she appeared in court to face charges of ‘transphobia’. If found guilty, she could face up to 10 years in prison, plus a hefty fine and legal fees.

Her potential crime? Stating on social media that males who identify as women – or ‘transgender women’ – were ‘obviously born male’. In other words, she stated a simple biological fact. It is also a comment that most transgender people would surely agree with: if males who identify as women were not born male, they would – by definition – not be transgender at all.

The whole case rests on no more than Borges’s decision to share a video on social media in November 2020 in which Bronwyn Winter, a professor at the University of Sydney, stated: ‘A person who identifies as transgender retains their birth DNA. No surgery, synthetic hormones, or change of clothes will alter this fact.’

The complaint was filed by Erika Hilton, a politician in São Paolo’s municipal government who identifies as a transwoman. Hilton has form when it comes to using the state apparatus to intimidate women who question trans orthodoxy. In 2022, he instigated a police investigation that brought the same charges against another young woman who dared to defend her own sex.

Under the alleged charge of ‘transphobia’, Hilton persuaded federal prosecutors to press charges against Isabela Cêpa, a feminist influencer who called him a ‘man’ on social media. The state threatened to jail the then 29-year-old for up to 25 years. How could anyone think this was a proportionate sentence, let alone a crime?

Writing for the Dominican newspaper El Caribe, I interviewed Cêpa in the midst of her persecution in October 2022. She told me:

‘Twenty-five years in prison is more time than a person convicted of first-degree murder would receive. It’s psychological terrorism… If I am convicted, it is true that I would spend time in jail. But that’s not what scares me most. More than a conviction against me, what terrifies me is the possibility that a judge could sentence a woman (any woman) to prison for expressing truthful opinions about biological sex.’

Fortunately, Cêpa was granted protection as a political refugee in Europe in the summer of 2025. But it seems that Hilton is determined to persecute another young woman for ‘expressing truthful opinions about biological sex’.

Brazil is not alone among Latin American countries in attempting to use the law to support the fantasies of crossdressing men. In 2021, on International Women’s Day – of all days – the government of the Dominican Republic proposed an amendment to the country’s penal code that sought to incarcerate people who ‘incite hatred’ against a group or person due to their ‘gender identity’. It stated:

‘Anyone who directly or indirectly fosters, promotes or incites hateful, hostile, discriminatory or violent conduct against a group or person based on their ideological affiliation, religion or beliefs, family situation, ethnicity, race or nation, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity… will be penalised with sentences of 30 years of imprisonment and [significant] fines.’

How does one indirectly foster hatred? Could it possibly be by writing articles and social-media posts critical of ‘gender identity’ theories? Or perhaps by hosting events in defence of sex-based rights? Mercifully, for Dominican women like me, this barbaric amendment was defeated in congress in 2025. But I can attest to the unbearable distress this threat of imprisonment had on people like me who advocate for sex-based rights.

The gender-identity theories that are now used to punish dissent in Latin America are exports. They come ready-made from law firms and universities in the United States, and European countries like Spain, France and the UK. These human-rights policy packages are forced on to the local populations in the Global South – and duly adopted by spineless and subservient governments – often as conditions to secure economic-development deals or as a bargaining chip during trade negotiations.

This is the draconian state of affairs many Latin American women now find themselves living in. ‘Gender identity’ policies are being imposed on them, under threat of political persecution and lengthy prison sentences. They are being coerced to say that men wearing women’s clothes are in fact women. Those, like Borges, who dare to speak out need our support more than ever.

Raquel del Rosario Sanchez is a writer, campaigner and researcher from the Dominican Republic.