Dear friends and allies from all over the world, Brazilian women and children need your voices right now.
We need you to help us bring attention to a case soon to be judged by our Supreme Court and that could effectively turn all the country's bathrooms into unisex spaces. The judgment will resume on May 29th 2024 and we have little time to try to attract some media attention to it.
Recurso Extraordinário (RE) 845.779 stems from a case that happened years ago, when a male-sexed individual self-declaring as a woman was prevented from using the female bathroom at a mall.
The description present at the Supreme Court's website states that it will discuss "whether preventing a transsexual person from using the bathroom for the opposite sex constitutes an offense to the person's dignity and right to personality, liable for moral damage compensation": if ruled in favor of the claimants, 700 other similar cases will follow this ruling and the future will look even bleaker for women fighting to keep our spaces single-sex.
Two of our 11 Supreme Court judges have already voted in favor of the claimants, meaning women start with a 2 x 0 score against us.
MATRIA has submitted an amicus brief and still hasn't heard back from the Court about whether it will be accepted or not. As it is, there isn't a single voice speaking for women in the proceedings.
Here in Brazil, as in every other country where self-id laws are in place, we have had many cases of violence against women in bathrooms, decried mostly by women's group or appropriated by the far-right, but never depicted in the media for what they are: male violence against women in spaces that should be a refuge from it.
Below, a few episodes [1] that have been covered in english, to illustrate the situation of women and girls that question the invasion of our spaces, even now, before this ruling. The first two happened in high schools and the last one pictured here took place in an university, where this bearded person attacked a young woman who questioned them being in the female bathroom:
Our country is already one of the most dangerous in the world for women, with an average of 1 femicide every 6 hours every day.
The dismantling of our rights, in every sphere, to accommodate the wishes of males, makes us even more vulnerable.
You can help in different ways:
Donations - please consider donating any sum to help us fund our legal actions through our paypal account (matria@associacaomatria.com).
Spread the word
Please share this threat to Brazilian women and girl's widely, RT our thread on X and repost our Instagram post.
If you have a little more time, help us out by sending emails to our Supreme Court Judges, according to the rules below.
E-mail addresses if the Supreme Court judges that haven't vote yet:
A suggestion of title for the e-mail (can be altered as you wish):
Keep bathrooms single-sex, keep women safe
A suggestion of text for the e-mail (can be altered as you wish):
To the Supreme Court Judges of Brazil.
As a woman, I am deeply concerned for the rights of my Brazilian sisters, who are under the threat of losing their right to privacy, dignity and security if Recurso Extraordinário 845.779 decides that bathrooms in the country can be used based on people’s self-declared “gender identity”.
Experiences worldwide show that this kind of policy endangers women and girls as can be seen in a few examples below:
https://www.4029tv.com/article/woman-accused-of-voyeurism-in-jb-hunt-corporate-office-restroom/45197805 [the person in question is a trans woman]
I truly hope women and girls’ rights are considered in such an important matter.
Respectfully,
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