Transgender Brazil congresswoman-elect: Election is ‘important step for democracy’
washingtonblade.comEditor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers will be on assignment in Brazil through Oct. 11. SÃO PAULO — One of the two transgender women who won a seat in the Brazilian Congress in the country’s Oct.
2 elections described her election as an “important step for democracy.” “I am very happy,” Congresswoman-elect Erika Hilton told the Washington Blade after she spoke at a rally in support of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in São Paulo’s Praça Roosevelt. “We have a history of (lacking) resources and a great need to occupy spaces.
This election shows that we plan to make a different history through what we have lived up until this point.” “I am confident,” added Hilton. “I am worried.” Hilton, 29, is a Black travesti and former sex worker who won a seat on the São Paulo Municipal Council in 2016.