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Just hours after assuming the presidency of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro took a series of measures that, coupled with the hate speech he delivered at his inauguration ceremony on January 1st, generated alarm and outrage from human rights organizations and LGBT+ groups in a country already considered the most dangerous in the world for transgender people. Every two days, a transgender or transvestite person is murdered in Brazil, according to the November report from the Trans Murder Monitoring Project .

• In his inaugural address, he promised: “We will unite the people, value the family, respect religions and our traditionally Judeo-Christian religion, combat gender ideology, and preserve our values. Brazil will once again be a country free from ideological constraints.”
• The following day, provisional measure 870 proposed a restructuring of the State and removed LGBTI+ groups from human rights policies .
• Decree 870 also closed the secretariats of diversity, inclusion and literacy of the Ministry of Education.
• He transformed the Ministry of Human Rights into the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights.  
• Damares Alves (who opposes abortion and sex education) to head this ministry.
• He cut the portfolio so that it no longer includes the rights of sexual diversity.
• Another measure: it gave the Government Secretariat the power to supervise, follow and monitor the activities of international bodies and non-governmental organizations based in Brazil.
• To leave no doubt about the direction, Minister Alves herself declared today that "a new era is dawning in Brazil: boys wear blue and girls wear pink." She took office today, surrounded by supporters chanting "Hallelujah" and "Glory to God," and emphasized that under her administration "there will be no ideological indoctrination. Girls will be princesses and boys, princes."

[READ ALSO: Lana from Holland: “Being trans in Brazil means living in danger every day”]

LGBT organizations: condemnation, alert and mobilization

RedLacTrans one of the many organizations that condemned "the measure by Brazilian President Jair Messias Bolsonaro who signed a provisional measure that removes the LGBT population from the Human Rights guidelines in Brazil."

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association for Latin America and the Caribbean (ILGALAC) declared itself “on alert and mobilized in response to Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-LGBTI rights measures in Brazil” and expressed its concern in a statement. “From ILGALAC’s Electoral Observatory for LGBTI Rights, we monitored the presidential elections and warned that Jair Bolsonaro’s political platform is ultraconservative, fascist, misogynistic, sexist, racist, xenophobic, and anti-LGBTI.”

[READ ALSO: #Brazil Wave of LGBT weddings before Bolsonaro takes office]

“Jair Bolsonaro’s first speech and initial actions confirm that Brazil is inaugurating a neo-fascist government that poses a high risk to the LGBTI community, putting all activism in the region on high alert and ready to mobilize,” Darío Arias, from the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association for Latin America and the Caribbean (ILGALAC), told Presentes. He added: “ This religiously fundamentalist, sexist, misogynistic, xenophobic, racist, neocolonialist, anti-rights, and economically ultraneoliberal agenda could only be imposed by staging a parliamentary coup against President Dilma Rousseff and imprisoning former President Lula da Silva, who listened to social movements and promoted the policies and government structures in favor of human rights that Bolsonaro is now destroying.”

“Brazil has the highest rate of gender-based hate crimes in the region. With the restriction of political, social, and cultural rights, we will face a scenario that those of us who have existed for over 50 years never wanted to see again: the hunting down of transvestites and transgender people,” said trans activist Lara Bertolini. She added, “Our sadness is immense, but our strength to fight and survive this time will be tremendous.”

[READ ALSO: “We are the seed of Marielle Franco that has already sprouted against Bolsonaro”]]

The LGBT+ community is not the only group harmed by Bolsonaro's initial measures, which also target other minorities and vulnerable populations in Brazil. Among his pronouncements, he promised to purge communist officials.

The Minister of the Presidency, Onyx Lorenzoni, announced today that the new government will dismiss any officials who defend such ideas. “Society has said enough to the socialist and communist ideas that have led us to the current chaos over the last 30 years,” he warned, after Bolsonaro’s first Cabinet meeting with his 22 ministers.

The worst country in the world for transvestites and trans people

Bolsonaro's measures are worrying not only because of their content but also because Brazil - according to figures revealed in November by the Trans Murder Monitoring Project - leads the world in the worst figures for violence against trans people.

[READ ALSO: #Brazil A trans woman was stabbed to death while shouting “Yes to Bolsonaro”]

In November 2018, the Trans Murders Observatory revealed that of a total of 369 reported homicides of trans and gender-diverse people between October 1, 2017, and September 30, 2018 (an increase of 44 cases compared to the previous year), the majority were perpetrated in Brazil. The report states: “ The majority of the murders occurred in Brazil (167), followed by Mexico (71), the United States (28), and Colombia (21), totaling 2,982 reported homicides of trans and gender-diverse people in 72 countries worldwide between January 1, 2008, and September 30, 2018.” This means that almost half of all transvesticide and transfemicides worldwide were committed in Brazil. Furthermore, following the electoral victory, the media reported that two trans people were murdered with speeches of hate invoking Bolsonaro .