The moral agenda and what they call the prejudice or intransigence of the left brought together Suellen Rayanne Linhares Ribeiro, known as a trans rightist, and pastor Fábio Brito Santana in a different program last weekend.
They interrupted their routine in the interior of and in , respectively, to participate in the walk proposed by (PL-MG) — an event marked by , and as an electoral leader of (PL), under criticism from allies of (PT).
On Sunday (25), the parliamentarian in Praça do Cruzeiro, in the federal capital, according to an estimate by the Cebrap Political Debate Monitor and the NGO More in Common, based on aerial images. The concentration was the result of the walk that began on the 19th in Paracatu, in the interior of Minas Gerais, and ended with injuries in Brasília after one.
The objective of the act, stated the parliamentarian, was to press for the release of the former president (PL) and others convicted of an attempted coup d’état.
Suellen and Fábio Brito did not go to the meeting together, but they have things in common. Both began to identify with the right around 2015, a year marked by anti-PTism and intense protests against the then president ().
In Suellen’s case, the march to the right began, as she says, when she realized that she did not identify with the impositions coming from progressive gay men, a time when she identified as homosexual. “LGBTs on the left threaten me, insult me, offend me for being right-wing, citing a contradiction in me. The left is also contradictory. They talk about me, but they support people and places where it is a crime to be LGBT.”
Now 26 years old, Suellen says she doesn’t agree with the left, especially when it comes to customs: she doesn’t think, for example, that trans women like her should use women’s bathrooms and she denies the existence of trans children. Acting as an influencer on social media, focusing on these issues, she says that Nikolas is an example to be followed in the fight for “justice, freedom and democracy”.
She claims to have taken a bus from Rio Claro (interior of SP), the city where she lives, to meet the group led by Nikolas in Luziânia (GO), about 60 km from Brasília. He says he walked half the way with the protesters, stayed in a hotel and, the next day, continued the journey.
When the lightning struck some of the protesters in Cruzeiro square, however, they were already at the Brasília bus station to return home. According to Suellen, the trip was worth it for the fight “in favor of democracy and for the freedom of those arrested on January 8th”.
She says that, before Bolsonaro’s arrest, she spoke on the phone with the former president, who knew her from her role as a right-wing trans person on social media. In 2024, Suellen tried to become a Rio Claro councilor for União Brasil, but only obtained 83 votes. Currently, she says she is affiliated with the PL.
“Nikolas Ferreira never addressed me as masculine nor did Bolsonaro. They always used feminine, my social name.”
The federal deputy has already responded more than once to court for accusations of transphobia. In one of the most recent cases, he was ordered to pay R$40,000 for calling a .
He also has arguments with deputy Duda Salabert (PDT-MG) on the same topic and, in his CV, an episode in which he mocks transgender women.
For Suellen, Nikolas is not transphobic. She states that part of the episodes with the politician happened because left-wing parliamentarians “provoke him a lot”. Other incidents, such as the wig, would be an act in “defense of women’s space”.
While the influencer says she has no religion, pastor Fábio Brito Santana, 42, saw what he understands to be left-wing agendas as a contradiction to his Christian ideals. He cites the fight for the legalization of drugs and abortion.
Santana says he left Salvador by car in the early hours of Friday (23) and met Nikolas and other protesters in the region of Valparaíso (GO), where he joined the demonstration. Afterwards, he went to a hotel and, on Sunday, met the protesters at Cruzeiro Park.
He states that he began to see himself as right-wing in 2015, when he was finishing his degree at a federal university. “There was a certain prejudice against me because I was a Christian”, he says, speaking of “impositions from the left” in an attempt to defend his way of seeing the world.
It is with this argument that Santana defends Nikolas against accusations of transphobia. “Nikolas is a Christian, the son of a pastor. He has a worldview based on the Bible”, he says. “If someone considers themselves a trans woman, that’s their right, but, biblically, there are only men and women.”
