Lesbian invisibility blocking access to rights in Brazil

In the first half of 2017, the National Human Rights Ombudsperson's Office received 82 reports of attacks on lesbian women. Children are also victimized by hatred violence on the basis of sexual orientation. In 2016 and 2017, the Ombudsman channels, including the Disque 100 hotline, received 21 reports of girls being victims of sexual violence, where the attacks were associated with their being lesbian, according to exclusive information obtained by Agência Brasil.

According to Ombudswoman, lesbian women are often abused in their own home by family members, so the problem could be largely underreported. One of the reasons for the victim not speaking up, she points out, is that abuse often happens when they are still not open about their sexual orientation.

“Violence is an even worse problem adding to the invisibility to cause terrible emotional mental suffering. These girls and women often lack family support,” she said.

She instanced a recent report on rape published by the Brazilian Public Security Forum, which does not separately point out cases where the motivation was the victim's sexual orientation, even though this is a common motive for violence purported to “straighten out” the victim. In the last two years alone, the Ombudsperson's Office received online reports of six web sites encouraging rape of lesbian women. According to the Ombudswoman, being specific about the motivation when reporting rape would enable policymakers to have better insight into the problem so they can respond adequately at the public policy level.

Seeking recognition

In order to raise awareness of the reality experienced by lesbian women, August 29 has been chosen as a National Lesbian Visibility Day. The date is a reference to the 1st National Lesbian Seminar on rights violations against the lesbian population, held in 1996. While there have been important achievements in the 21 years since, including the adoption of policies for the LGBT population, and growing media exposure, the institutional and street-level challenges remain, for example, for achieving public recognition of lesbian homosexuality.

“We still need to be seen as people with rights. We need to give visibility to our experiences, because we are all around. We are teachers, civil servants, domestic workers, prostitutes. We are right here, but they don't want to see us,” said the vice-president of the Brazilian Gay, Lesbian, Transvestite and Transsexual (ABGLT) Association, Heliana Hemeterio dos Santos. In her view, there are gender elements to this invisibility. “We are women in a patriarchal society where women are made invisible. And lesbian women face yet more pressure since they are perceived as failing to fulfill the reproductive role this patriarchy expects of women,” she said.

Translated by Mayra Borges