The São Paulo Court ordered the federal deputy (PL-MG) to pay R$40,000 for moral damages in a 2022 episode in which the parliamentarian called a trans woman a “man.”
At the time, Nikolas, then a councilor in Belo Horizonte, republished and commented on social media a video in which the woman said she had suffered transphobia in a beauty establishment in São Paulo, which she said only served cisgender women.
In the process, the defense of today’s federal deputy cites freedom of expression and immunity provided for in the Constitution for councilors for “their opinions, words and votes in the exercise of their mandate and in the municipal district”.
Judge André Augusto Salvador Bezerra, of the 42nd Civil Court, considered that parliamentary immunity was not applicable, since the matter did not refer to the “discussion of topics relating to the municipality where the parliamentarian held office at the time of the events”.
He also pointed out that the “gender ideology” mentioned by Nikolas in the process is a term “used by certain religious groups, which insist on denying people the right to assign themselves to a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth.”
“In a society where freedom and democracy prevail, it does not seem reasonable to deny this right [de autoidentificação de gênero]”, stated the magistrate.
“After all, it is a matter of fact that it does not affect the legal sphere of anyone else, except the person involved: other people will continue to be able to exercise their sexual options, churches will continue to be able to hold their services, fathers and mothers will continue to transmit their moral values to their offspring. Nothing, absolutely nothing will change, except for the person who was assigned the different gender at birth.”
Bezerra also stated that the “debate of ideas between political groups cannot be used to discriminate” and cited ADO (Direct Action of Unconstitutionality by Omission) 26, in which transphobia was equated to the crime of racial insult.
Pointing out that there is no doubt that the author of the case “suffered pain capable of characterizing off-balance sheet data, with notable repercussions”, the judge ordered Nikolas to pay compensation for moral damages in the amount of R$40,000.
The parliamentarian was also ordered to pay procedural costs, set at 10% of the compensation amount. The decision is due on November 19th. There is still an appeal.
Nikolas Ferreira was a councilor in Belo Horizonte from 2020 to 2022 and was later elected federal deputy. The parliamentarian accumulates reports of transphobia, as a result of an episode that occurred in 2020, when the politician said he would call Duda by the pronoun “he” during an interview.
Other emblematic cases were an episode in which, on International Women’s Day 2023, and a post on the internet made by the deputy in 2022 of a video of a trans student in a girls’ bathroom at a school.
