Sao Paulo (EFE) social politics.
The participants of the “Parada”, which was already in the Guinness Book of Records when in 2006 it concentrated 2.5 million people, this year shelved what the organizers call the “disastrous management” of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022).
Paulistanos and visitors from all over Brazil, wrapped in rainbow flags, gathered on Avenida Paulista since morning in the heat of batucadas and 19 large sound trucks, “led” by drag queens and iconic singers from the collective, such as Pabllo Vittar and Daniela Mercury.
Bolsonaro’s defeat: defeat of homophobia
One of the first to go to the meeting place, Eduardo Valentino, a 35-year-old gay activist and social educator, arrived by bus from Franca, a conservative city in the interior of the state of Sao Paulo, with a group of about 200 people to celebrate. that “four years of violence, hate speech and fake news” have been left behind.
“Bolsonaro’s defeat was not a simple defeat, it was a defeat against homophobia and prejudice, but some of the seeds he planted still remain, such as an extremist Congress,” says Valentino, dressed in a multicolored T-shirt, referring to the powerful evangelical representation in the Legislature.
The activist cited that “in the last six months, these parliamentarians presented around 40 bills against the LGBT population.”
After the main objective of the march in 2022 was to mobilize the vote against the ultra-right in the October presidential elections, the twenty-seventh edition has celebrated the return of the left to power, with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president, without for that reason abandon its vindictive character.
Under the slogan “Social policies for LGBT+: we want them complete and not in half”, the manifesto for the march warns that there is still a lot to be done and demands, among other things, that social housing programs contain quotas for LGBT people of low resources.
For a law in Brazil against discrimination
Retired teacher Leila d’Arc de Souza, 59, participated in the parade to fight for a “more inclusive” school and to ask that the law education in Brazil includes the explicit obligation to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation.
D’Arc de Souza’s son committed suicide two years ago, after being bullied at the Brasilia public school he attended and which he ended up dropping out at 16 due to pressure.
Until then, teachers at the school often called D’Arc de Souza to task for the boy “hugging” his classmates or applying powder to his face to disguise his acne, and once even recommended that he target “men’s sports.”
A survivor of those same prejudices, the transvestite artistically known as Tania Leona del Escándalo, 55 years old and dressed in a green heroin cape, remembers having suffered a dozen physical attacks since she launched her career in the early 1990s.
Tania affirms that, after those sacrifices, the young generations of the LGBT community have “the upper hand” to make a difference.
In Brazil, the country where the most transsexuals are murdered in the world, 20% of LGBT people say they suffer hostility or prejudice in the family environment, and another 59% say they feel unsafe on the street, according to a recent survey by the Datafolha Institute.