Transgender Brazil congresswoman-elect: Election is ‘important step for democracy’
Editor’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.
The member of the leftist Socialism and Liberty Party is among the 10 congressional candidates in São Paulo state who received the most votes on Oct.
