LGBT Rights in Brazil : An analysis of the public policies established by the Federal Government to recognize the human rights of the LGBT community

Abstract

This dissertation aimed at examining the achievements of the Federal Government of Brazil for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals (LGBT), comparing the public policies established by the administrations of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002) and Lula (2003-2010) to that community. This study particularly focused on investigating the factors responsible for the progressive reforms made by those governments in order to recognize the human rights of LBGTs in Brazil, and analyzing the relationship between the state and the LGBT Movement, the roles played and discourses employed by each of these actors in those reforms. Attention was also given to the social, economic and political conjuncture of the country, as well as the structures within the government and potential international and transnational influences. The research methods employed were Content Analysis and Discourse Analysis and the objects of my analyses were the following policies: Programa Nacional DST/AIDS, Programa Nacional de Direitos Humanos I, II and III, Programa Brasil sem Homofobia and the Plano Nacional LGBT. The data used were the actual content of those policies, official reports, speeches and articles, existing literature on the topic, as well as interviews performed by me and another author with LGBT activists and government officials. My study revealed that these activists introduced a rights-based discourse in their state-directed strategies which heavily influenced the government’s response to the AIDS crisis, with the incorporation of activists as executors of state policies. As a result of the steady engagement between these two actors, activists were able to expand the scope of the government’s actions from the health domain to the human rights field. Ultimately, the government turned activists into policy makers and progressively recognized LGBT rights in the public policy domain through discourses of human rights and full citizenship.