Erika Hilton, left, and Duda Salabert, Brazilian federal deputies elected in 2023. Image: montage by Global Voices with pictures from Kayo Magalhães and Bruno Spada, Chamber of Deputies archive.

On April 15, 2025, Brazilian federal deputy Erika Hilton reported that when she applied for a United States visa, she was classified as a “male” individual. This was a new situation for her, as in 2023, when she was issued another visa by the US, her gender identity was acknowledged as that of a female person.

The Brazilian parliamentarian said she will summon current US President Donald Trump at the United Nations (UN) to answer for transphobia, and search for other channels at Brazil's Chamber of Deputies, at the National Congress, to denounce the episode as “barbarism, an attack on human rights.” On a post on Twitter (now X), she stated:

O que me preocupa é um país estar ignorando documentos oficiais acerca da existência dos próprios cidadãos, e alterando-os conforme a narrativa e os desejos de retirada de direitos do Presidente da vez.

What worries me is that a country is ignoring official documents about the existence of citizens, and altering them according to the narrative and wishes of withdrawing rights of the President of the time.

The reason for Hilton's visa request to the US was an invitation for the 11th edition of the Brazil Conference, an annual event at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in Boston, organized by Brazilian students.

On another post on social media, the parliamentarian said she wasn't surprised by the categorization because of the Trump government's anti-gender identity agenda, but noted that “in Brazil, [this] is a political agenda of hate that we have defeated once.” At the beginning of the year, US actress Hunter Schaefer, also a trans woman, known for her role on the TV series Euphoria, faced the same situation when her passport was issued as “sex: male.”

At 32 years old, Erika Hilton self-identifies as a trans woman and as a travesti (a gender identity more commonly used in Latin America). She has had all her Brazilian documents rectified according to her identity, and therefore, she is recognised as a woman under Brazilian law. In an interview with TV news channel Globonews, she said:

É uma transfobia de Estado e, mais do que isso, um incidente diplomático, quando o governo americano acha que está autorizado a violar os meus direitos enquanto cidadã brasileira. O meu registro civil me reconhece enquanto mulher, os meus documentos me reconhecem enquanto mulher.

It's state transphobia and, more than that, a diplomatic incident, when the US government thinks it is authorized to violate my rights as a Brazilian citizen. My civil record recognizes me as a woman, my documents recognize me as a woman.

After Hilton's case was made public, Duda Salabert — another federal deputy and also a trans woman — said she is facing a similar situation. Invited for a class at Harvard,  she said she had been informed by the US government that her new visa would also identify her as a male individual.

On social media, Salabert said she tried to solve the situation through diplomatic means, and that she even submitted her updated birth certificate, where she appears as “female”:

Essa situação é mais do que transfobia: é um desrespeito à soberania do Brasil e aos direitos humanos mais básicos […] não cabe ao governo dos EUA discordar e refutar os documentos do Brasil.

This situation is more than transphobia: it's a disrespect to Brazil's sovereignty
and the most basic human rights […] it is not the US role to disagree or to refute Brazil's documents.

Pioneers

Hilton and Salabert made history as the first two transgender women at the National Congress of Brazil. In 2023, both of them were included in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential leaders.

Erika Hilton and Duda Salabert. Image: montage by Global Voices with Time magazine covers. Fair use.

Elected as a federal deputy by the state of São Paulo with over 250,000 votes in 2022,  Hilton started her political career as a city councillor in the state's capital, one of the most populous cities in Latin America. At the time, in 2020, she was also among the councillors with the most votes in the country. A teacher, she acts upon issues that focus on human rights, fighting hunger, the defense of the public health system and guaranteeing citizenship for the Black and LGBTQ+ population.

Salabert also began as a city councillor in 2020, when she was elected in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais state, with over 30,000 votes — one of the local elections’ all-time records. Two years later, she was once again among the most-voted politicians in her home state, which has around 20 million, and became a federal deputy. Among her key focus issues are environmental policies — she doesn't print campaign advertising material to avoid generating more litter — and education. Salabert is a literature professor.

‘Transgender lunacy’

Since they entered politics, both trans women parliamentarians share another common feature: being targeted by right-wing politicians. Salabert was called “a man” by a city councillor, who is now a federal deputy and was convicted of transphobia after this episode. Hilton was called a “former male citizen who now says is a female citizen” by another deputy, also sued for transphobia. Those speeches seemed to echo what one sees in the United States, both in the president's agenda and that of his allies. On social media, the Brazilian politicians have also faced attacks from right-leaning people who support the US government's measures.

Since the beginning of his second term, Donald Trump has adopted an anti-gender policy against the LGBTQ+ community in the US and, on his first day back in office, he ensured a restraint to what he called “transgender lunacy,” applying measures such as the closing of federal government's diversity programs and the suspension of passports using the letter X to designate non-binary people.

According to the new US policy, only two genders are recognized: “male and female.” The order signed by Trump says genders are “immutable” since they are based on a “fundamental and undeniable reality.”

Amid Trump's anti-trans actions, representatives from organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have stood up for the trans population. Joshua Block, senior advisor of the ACLU's HIV and LGBTQ+ projects, said the president is “determined to use all levels of government to expel trans people from public life.”

Since the trip would be an official mission for Erika Hilton, Brazil's Chamber of Deputies forwarded the request directly to the US Embassy. The politician's team said the process had difficulties from the beginning, and that they had been advised to ask for a tourist visa instead. Later on, the official status for the travel was recognized, and Hilton was accepted, but with her sex marked as male in her documents.

Diplomatic battle

Still on Globo News TV channel, Hilton affirmed that the case will be presented to the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Through a note sent to Agência Brasil, the US Embassy in Brasilia said “visa records are confidential according to American law,” and that “it is US policy to recognize only two sexes, male and female, considered immutable since birth.”

Hilton met Brazil's foreign relations minister, Mauro Vieira, on April 23 to discuss her case. On an Instagram post, she said she hoped the government would demand an explanation from the US Embassy in the country. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva already said he will do so.

On X, Hilton had already marked her motivations for searching for such answers:

Porque isso não vai parar em nós ou atingir apenas as pessoas trans, a lista de alvos dessa gente é imensa. Ela já estava sendo escrita quando o primeiro escravizado foi liberto, quando a primeira mulher votou, quando os trabalhadores exigiram o primeiro aumento de salário, quando os indígenas reivindicaram o direito ao próprio território, quando um latino tentou ter de volta um pouco do que lhe foi roubado.

Because it will not stop with us or hit only trans people; the list of targets of these people is huge. It was written when the first enslaved person was freed, when the first woman voted, when workers demanded their first salary raise, when Indigenous people claim the right to their own land, when a Latino tried to get back a little of what was stolen from them.