The Brazilian government has made significant strides in advancing rights for women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex and more (LGBTI+) people since 2000.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration (2003–11) enacted several essential measures, including the creation of the Secretariat of Policies for Women in 2003, tasked with managing gender equality initiatives. In 2004, the Brazil Without Homophobia programme was launched, representing the first governmental effort to support LGBTI+ rights. Another significant milestone was the introduction of the Maria da Penha Law in 2006, aimed at combating violence against women. Landmark rulings by the Brazilian Supreme Court included the 2011 recognition of same-sex unions nationwide, and a 2012 decision granting the right to abortion in cases of anencephaly.
However, in 2016, President Dilma Rousseff was impeached in a parliamentary coup and Michel Temer, her former vice-president and a centre-right politician, took over as president. During his administration (2016–19), there was a systematic rollback of policies aimed at promoting gender equality. For instance, Temer dissolved the Ministry of Women, Racial Equality, Youth, and Human Rights (which included the Secretariat of Policies for Women), and reassigned it to the Ministry of Justice, though it lost its prior significance. Furthermore, vital programmes like the Women Living without Violence initiative saw substantial funding cuts.
The erosion of gender rights deepened under President Jair Bolsonaro (2019–22), as his administration actively opposed gender equality efforts (Gomes da Costa Santos 2021), in a context of escalating attacks against activists, including the assassination of black feminist activist Marielle Franco in 2018. Bolsonaro’s government pursued a conservative moral agenda, promoting patriarchal family values and adopting an expressly ‘anti-gender’ position. One prominent example was replacing the Ministry of Human Rights with the Ministry of Women, Family, and Human Rights, led by an evangelical pastor as Minister. During Bolsonaro’s presidency, gender equality policies were either abolished or reframed to emphasise traditional family roles (Biroli 2021). On the international stage, Brazilian representatives in forums like the United Nations Human Rights Council and the SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) Core Group promoted positions defending the right to life from conception, and equated gender with biological sex (Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association (ABIA) et al. 2021).
In October 2022, Lula da Silva was elected for a third term, narrowly defeating Jair Bolsonaro (Borges and Oliveira 2022). Lula da Silva’s government has been characterised as ‘a positive development for the protection and promotion of human rights and democracy in Brazil’ (European Union 2024: 259). Regarding women’s rights and gender equality, Lula’s administration has made several notable changes. The government established the Ministry of Women and withdrew from the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a 2020 anti-abortion agreement endorsed by Bolsonaro’s administration. It also re-established the National Council for LGBTI+ Rights, which was dismantled under Bolsonaro, and introduced a bill (PL 5034) in 2023 to classify ‘conversion therapies’ as a form of torture, with penalties of up to eight years in prison.
Landscape of anti-rollback actors
This document studies key actions and strategies employed by seven feminist and LGBTI+ organisations to counter rollback in the country. The identified rollback actors primarily focus on advocacy and research at national and sub-national levels. All are grass-roots organisations that collaborate within networks to achieve specific goals, with the primary objective of confronting specific instances of rollback during Bolsonaro’s government but also addressing continuous, more entrenched forms of rollback. There is limited public information available about these organisations’ funding sources and how they allocate their budget for activities. One possible reason for this is that Bolsonaro’s government increased the oversight of public funding given to non-governmental organisations. In terms of issues and areas of focus, the seven organisations’ main focus is on defending democracy and women’s rights, often through protests and manifestos that directly confront anti-gender initiatives introduced by Bolsonaro’s government. They also work on sexuality and reproductive rights, such as advocating for the legalisation of abortion. Finally, there is an emphasis on addressing gender-based violence by collecting data and promoting legislation and policies to combat it.
Counter-rollback strategies
A key strategy among the seven organisations is building an evidence base to influence policies and legal initiatives. For instance, the Observatory of LGBTI+ Deaths and Violence in Brazil publishes reports on lethal violence against LGBTI+ people (Acontece Arte e Política LGBTI+ et al. 2024). Since 2018, reports have specifically documented the murders and violence faced by travestis and transsexuals (Benevides 2024). Other organisations have produced research on black women’s political participation, abortion, and feminist theology (Criola 2023; Mulheres Negras Decidem 2022). Organisations have been actively documenting backlash, primarily by publishing manifestos and news articles about how Bolsonaro’s government promoted anti-gender and anti-democratic policies.
Protests have also been a central strategy among organisations in response to Bolsonaro’s administration and broader structural issues in Brazil. Women United Against Bolsonaro organised a significant demonstration in various Brazilian cities in September 2018 to oppose his candidacy (Perez, Vaz de Moura and Melo 2023). Throughout his presidency, International Women’s Day protests targeted his policies and administration (Gama and Leite 2019). The protests also raised awareness about critical issues, including violence against women, gender equality, and justice for Marielle Franco’s murder (Brasil de Fato 2020). Under the March of Black Women against Racism, Violence, and for Good Living in Brasília, 50,000 women rallied for the right to live free from discrimination at all stages of life. Some organisations have employed online protest strategies to resist Bolsonaro’s policies. For example, in 2018, the #EleNão (#NotHim) digital campaign, run by activists, gained significant traction online to confront Bolsonaro’s candidacy. This led to the creation of the Facebook group Women United Against Bolsonaro, which had grown to approximately 3.64 million members by December 2018 (Bulegon 2023; Perez et al. 2023). Later, the group Uprising of Brazilian Women published an online manifesto for Bolsonaro’s impeachment, signed by 45,353 women from various backgrounds by mid-2020 (Levante de Mulheres Brasileiras 2020).
Organisations also play a crucial role in offering services, training, capacity building, and other support, in light of state absence and retreat. For instance, Criola conducts workshops on political advocacy as well as digital and physical security for black activists. An example is the black female leadership development programme, Marielle Franco, which was organised in collaboration with Criola and the Instituto Amma Psique e Negritude. The programme aimed to enhance the participation of black women in positions of power and influence. Catholics for the Right to Decide (CDD) provides training in feminist theology, gender theories, and sexual and reproductive rights, which helped establish the National Network of Catholic Women Activists for the Right to Decide (CDD 2020). The network aims to elaborate strategies for confronting religious fundamentalism.
Forging coalitions and networks to pursue specific objectives is another common anti-rollback approach. A notable example is the Occupy Congress for the Lives of Women, Girls, and People Who Gestate initiative, launched in 2022 through partnerships between various feminist groups (Sardenberg et al. 2024). This movement primarily focused on occupying the National Congress to protest the Bolsonaro administration’s policies on legal abortion and gender-based violence (CUT 2022). The occupation enabled better coordination among feminist movements advocating for abortion rights and strengthened relationships with parliamentarians (Sardenberg et al. 2024). Significant networks advocating for LGBTI+ rights include the Brazilian Association of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Travestis, Transsexuals, and Intersex people, which includes 300 organisations (ABGLT 2024), and the National Association of Travestis and Transsexuals, comprising 127 collectives (ANTRA n.d.).Organisations have also made significant strides in legal and policy arenas, particularly concerning sexual orientation and gender identity. In 2019, the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court criminalised homophobia and transphobia (Swift 2019). In 2023, it further decreed that the use of homophobic slurs is subject to imprisonment (Osinoff 2023).
Gaps and areas for future research/work
There is a dearth of research and data on some key areas: strategies to counter more continuous forms of backlash; information on how organisations fund their activities; and knowledge on how collectives resist backlash from non-state actors. Finally, there is not enough critical commentary on effectiveness, or what works to counter backlash, charting pathways to transformation.
Credits
This Country Brief was written by Maria del Pilar Grados Bueno. It was supported by the project Rapid Scoping Review – The Nature of Feminist and LGBT+ Movements in a Range of Selected Countries, funded by UK International Development from the UK government. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of IDS or the UK government’s official policies.
This is an Open Access brief distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited and any modifications or adaptations are indicated.
