NEW YORK – GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today issued the following media backgrounder to expose Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s history of attacking LGBTQ Brazilians in policy and rhetoric ahead of his scheduled meetings with President Donald Trump on Tuesday.

“Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is a tyrant who has condoned violence against LGBTQ people, even if it means death,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD. “Americans should be disturbed that the President of the United States is holding meetings with Bolsonaro and choosing to set a dangerous precedent by normalizing an anti-LGBTQ tyrant.”

President Bolsonaro has a long record of attacking LGBTQ Brazilians. From claiming he’d rather have his son killed than for him to be LGBTQ to advocating for violence against LGBTQ Brazilians – the Brazilian president’s toxic rhetoric appears to be similar to that of President Trump, who has attacked LGBTQ Americans more than 97 times since taking office. All of Trump’s anti-LGBTQ actions can be found on GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Project (TAP) by going to www.glaad.org/trump.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Anti-LGBTQ History of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro

·         Said he’d prefer his son die in an accident than be gay (Rough translation: “There are certain things that I say are as death. It would bring me disgust, would make me sad, and I even think that he, himself, would abandon me in that case. To me, it is death. And more: I’d rather he died in an accident than show up with some guy. To me, he really would have died.” Original interview, in Portuguese, can be found here: web.archive.org/web/20110709235317/http://playboy.abril.com.br/entretenimento/entrevista/jair-bolsonaro/

• Reiterated his preference for a dead son over a gay son: “I prefer, rather, a son run over by a convoy to a homosexual son. If my son were “gay,” he would be dead to me.”

·         Supported a father who beat his 8-year-old son to death for showing effeminate traits, suggesting that beating the child would have prevented him from being gay.

·         Has bragged that “if I see two men kissing on the street, I’m going to hit them.”

·         Said: “If a gay couple came to live in my building, my property will lose value. If they walk around holding hands, kissing, it will lose value! No one says that out of fear of being pinned as homophobe.”

·         Claimed LGBT rights activists wants to recruit children for sex: “They want to reach our children in order to turn the children into gay adults to satisfy their sexuality in the future. So these are the fundamentalist homosexual groups that are trying to take over society.”

·         Said being gay is a “behavioral issue” inspired by “liberal habits” “drugs” and “women also working,” adding that is a young person starts hanging out with certain people with a certain behavior, he’ll adopt that sort of behavior. He’ll think it’s normal”.lab.org.uk/ellen-page-confronts-jair-bolsonaro-about-homophobia-in-rio-de-janeiro/

·         Referred to a rival political party as “a party of dicks and faggots”.

·         Implied that President Dilma Rousseff is a lesbian, demanding that she “admit your love with homosexuals”.

·         Called Eleonora Menicucci, the Minister for Women’s Policy, “a big dyke”.

·         Said he’d “rather have a son who is an addict than a son who is gay”.

·         Said he does not have a gay child because his children are well educated.

·         Insisted gay parents sexually abuse their children: “I make a connection between homosexuality and pedophilia because many of the children who will be adopted by “gay” couples will be abused by these homosexual couples.”

·         Wanted to rid textbooks of homosexuality.

·         Removed LGBTQ rights from human rights ministry considerations just hours after inauguration.

·         Said: “If your son begins to act like this, sort of gay, he deserves a smack and he’ll change his behavior”.

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