June 4, 2022

09:06

Ívina Garcia – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The fields “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” should be included in the Census 2022, after a decision of the Federal Court of Acre, which granted the request of the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) for the inclusion of categories by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

Currently, the Census 2022 does not have national coverage that traces the social, geographic, economic and cultural profile of LGBTQIA+ people. However, some NGOs and LGBT movements carry out their own surveys, but they do not have national coverage and do not reach the most distant places where the census can reach.

It was based on this problem that, in February, the MPF filed a public civil action for these fields to be included in the basic and sample questionnaires of the Census. The agency believes that the inclusion of this information “plays a significant role in the implementation of public policies by highlighting social issues that are still latent. For the agency, it is only by knowing the quantity and living conditions of LGBTQIA+ people that social demands can be included in the formulation of public policies.

Álex Sousa, the first non-binary trans recognized in the state of Amazonas and PSOL state leader, agrees with the text of the decision and reiterates that the “inclusion of the categories of gender identity and sexual orientation becomes extremely important, because only by knowing the numbers of sexual orientations and gender identity will it be possible to understand the sexual and gender diversity existing in Brazil”.

The researcher remembers that there are around 2% of LGBTQIA+ people in the country. The number seems to be small, but it is still millions of unprotected people. “We are in June 2022, LGBTQIA+ pride month, and we still resist in the midst of a nation that takes the most lives of LGBTQIA+ people. Recently, IBGE released research indicating that 1.8% of LGBTQIA+ people in Brazil are self-declared as homosexual or bisexual. I, particularly, believe that this number is much higher”, she says.

A research work conducted by the NGO TODX, included in the MPF document, shows that violence against this group, in the years 2018 and 2019, has a worrying volume of underreporting in cases of LGBTphobia.

“Brazil is violent with our existences, when we identify ourselves as LGBTQIA+ people, in the vast majority of cases we are sentenced to two paths: either we conquer and dominate the environment around us, or we repress ourselves to be able to survive in a more hostile environment,” he evaluates.

Decision

In the decision, federal judge Herley da Luz Brasil refuted IBGE’s arguments about the technical freedom of the body, complexity of operationalization for the 2022 Census, and the sensitive and private nature of the issues.

“The omission that the Brazilian State has historically used in disfavor of the LGBTQIA+ population is relevant and needs to be corrected. While persecution, sickness, death, holocaust and other criminal discriminations are and/or are practiced by action, there is also violation of rights by state omission,” says the Federal Court in an excerpt of the decision. From then on, IBGE has 30 days to inform the measures taken and to comply with the decision of the Justice of Pará.

Essential

For Andira Angeli, independent artist, transvestite, vice president of the Manifesta LGBT Association, this notification is essential because the lack of it ends up validating violence against LGBTQIA+ people. “I understand that in order for us to destructure this system, we need to enter it, so it is an important step that needs to be taken, now, so that we can exist within this system, as numbers, so that we can get more public policies.

And one of the challenges of this underreporting is, precisely, getting help. Andira recalls an episode where she needed the numbers for the Casa Miga project, the first LGBTQIA+ Shelter House in the North Region, which shelters both Brazilians and refugees expelled from their homes or in situations of social vulnerability.

“We already went to look for the public authorities, at the City Hall, to seek support for Casa Miga, they said that there were no numbers of LGBTQIA+ people on the streets or in social vulnerability. So, until we create numbers of our population and define ourselves within this”.

See the decision in full: