Liberalization and the Fight against AIDS

In the late 1970s, during a slow-motion liberalization and a return to democratic rule, gay and lesbian organizations formed, and a group of intellectuals published Lampião da Esquina, the first national monthly targeting a gay and lesbian audience.

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Activists from some of the country's first groups played a crucial role in responding to the AIDS epidemic. Working to avoid a discourse in the war against AIDS, activists developed innovative safe-sex campaigns and convinced the Ministry of Health to embrace aggressive educational campaigns around condom use. Brazil has led the international movement to guarantee that poor and industrializing countries have access to cheap generic drugs to combat the disease.

Resurgence of the GLBTQ Movement

In 1995, Brazilian activists hosted the Seventeenth International Conference of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) in Rio de Janeiro. This marked a resurgence of the glbtq movement throughout the country.

Stereotypical images of Brazil as the land of tropical delights obscure the fact that the country has one of the highest murder rates of gay men, transvestites, lesbians, and sex workers in the world, reaching one death every three days in the late 1990s. One of the first national campaigns of the movement was to document and denounce such violence and hate crimes.

Significantly, drag queens and transsexuals, two important components of the glbtq world, have begun to articulate a political role in this resurgence of activism.

In addition to Pride Parades in the nation's major cities, there has been an explosion in gay and lesbian culture and visibility, from film fests to Master's theses on glbtq topics at universities throughout the country. The media now also gives ample positive coverage to glbtq issues.

Whereas during most of the twentieth century, Brazilians could freely express sexual and gender differences only during the four days of Carnival celebrations, today they enjoy much more freedom the year round.

Despite continuing problems of violence and hate crimes, Brazil has entered the new century a much more gay-friendly place than it has been. The recent political successes of the Brazilian glbtq movement, and the increased visibility of glbtq people in all walks of life, have contributed to a new vibrancy and openness in Brazil.

Cross-dressers have often been misunderstood and maligned, especially in societies with rigid gender roles.

"Domestic partnership" is the generic term for a variety of forms of legal and institutional recognition of same-sex couples that fall short of same-sex marriage.

In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Inquisitions of Aragon and Portugal prosecuted almost 1500 trials for sodomy of various kinds.

Gay and lesbian Latin American artists frequently use their art to portray their desire for sexual and political liberation, often combining traditional subject matter with personal symbols and insights to stress their longing for acceptance.

Although Latin Americans have produced many works that have homoerotic themes or gay and lesbian characters, their sensibilities are largely different from those of North American and European writers.

Same-sex sexual practices among the indigenous peoples of Latin America were seen by their Spanish and Portuguese conquerors as evidence of their cultural inferiority and were repressed through both religious and civil means.

Both parades and marches have served to render the glbtq community visible; whereas marches typically attempt to effect political change, parades and pride events affirm identity and community.

Despite social and economic problems, Rio de Janeiro has long been a fun-filled gay and lesbian mecca.

Lesbian and gay couples have been fighting for the freedom to marry since the dawn of the modern glbtq struggle for equality; despite some success abroad, progress toward same-sex marriage in the United States has been slow.

South America's largest metropolis and Brazil's richest city, São Paulo prides itself on a vibrant and diverse glbtq community.

The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) is a worldwide federation of local and national groups dedicated to achieving equal rights for glbtq people.

The achievement of Alberto Santos-Dumont, the Brazilian dandy who is regarded by many as the father of modern aviation, may have been minimized in some circles because he was likely homosexual.

Transgender people--more specifically, people who were born male but present themselves as female--are Brazil's single most marginalized group.