By Janaina Oliveira*

The humanitarian and economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has deepened social inequalities in Brazil and has increasingly revealed a historically structured racist model with phobia towards homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals and trans people.

Social structures establish a system of oppression and discrimination that crushes the Black population daily, whether through labor exploitation or marginalization. Even social classes in Brazil are heavily marked by skin color, with the elites composed of white people and the lower classes composed almost entirely of Black people.

Although the pandemic arrived in Brazil through white people returning from travel to countries affected by Covid-19, it was through the exploitation of domestic work by these people in quarantine that the pandemic spread to the outskirts , with one of the first fatal victims, without adequate medical attention, being a black housekeeper who was forced to take care of her boss infected with the coronavirus, and the boss recovered and was assisted by the health plan in good hospitals.

The national hospital bed system itself has enabled the white, upper-class population to relocate to other states, moving to the front of the line for the poor, Black, local population. This system has been heavily criticized by government officials, yet it has been defended as part of the federal government's necropolitics.

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According to the Minister of Health, the SUS currently registers one death for every three black and Black people hospitalized for SARS**, caused by the coronavirus, while among the white population there is one death for every 4.4 hospitalizations.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the infection and death curve has changed, and the white population, which has more access to testing and medical care, has a reduction in the number of deaths, while the black population has a rapidly growing number of deaths, and many continue to die without a confirmed diagnosis of the disease, and, at home or at the door of hospitals, without medical care.

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As the crisis worsened in the states, the National Council of Justice (CNJ) of the Ministry of Health issued Ordinance No. 1/2020 on March 31, permitting cremation and burial without a death certificate. This effectively creates a mass of missing persons from Covid-19, depriving them of the right to be remembered. This measure primarily affects the Black and LGBT+ population, who live in isolation after being expelled from their families. If no family member claims their bodies, these individuals will not even be included in Covid-19 statistics.

In addition to the disease, state violence has been another factor exposing the population . With social isolation and lockdowns decreed by governors, Black and LGBT workers have been forced to coexist with crowds on the public transportation system on their way to work due to reduced fleets, and they have still been violently confronted by police in the streets for not wearing masks. Arbitrary arrests of Black people at fairs and/or on their way to work for wearing a mask to prevent Covid-19 have been documented by local media and social networks.

Diabetes, tuberculosis, and self-medication

Living conditions, lack of adequate medical care, racism, and institutionalized phobia towards LGBT+ people have always been reasons that have distanced the black population and LGBT+ people from the SUS (Unified Health System), which promotes self-medication in this population and compromises the immune system.

Of the Brazilian population that depends on the SUS, 67% are black and Black, and these are also the majority of patients with diabetes, tuberculosis, hypertension and chronic kidney diseases, factors that increase the development of the severe form of the disease and its lethality.

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It is also important to highlight that the participation of Black women as professionals in the care sector leaves them overexposed, primarily due to a lack of protective equipment. These domestic workers care for their employers and are exposed both on the job and because they lack adequate training or protective equipment, thus exposing their families and communities to their employers' illnesses. Nannies and caregivers for the elderly are also at risk.

Furthermore, according to the Ministry of Health's epidemiological bulletin, young Black gay men account for approximately 60% of HIV/AIDS-related deaths. However, recommendations for this population were delayed and consisted of releasing larger quantities of medication and reducing the number of consultations for HIV-positive patients. Nevertheless, the high morbidity rate already reflects the difficulties this population faces in accessing the healthcare system, and without considering their current circumstances, the Ministry has further restricted this access.

Informality and unemployment

After the reforms that focused on labor rights in Brazil (Subcontracting – Law No. 13.429/2017, and Labor Reform – Law No. 13.467/2017) there has been a record increase in job insecurity and informality, which reached more than 41% in 2019, so the growth of informality has been masking the data on unemployment, which seems to decrease, but in reality people are ceasing to look for formal work, and in 20 states informality reaches 50% or more.

Adding this scenario to discriminatory processes, the current condition of family and social exclusion of the women, blacks and LGBT+ population makes the need to act to generate employment and income for this population increasingly evident, since discrimination hinders both entry into and permanence in the labor market.

Poverty is prevalent among the LGBT population due to family abandonment that leaves LGBT youth homeless, without housing or educational prospects , hindering or even eliminating their ability to enter the formal labor market and escape poverty. Consequently, underemployment, prostitution, and various interruptions in the formal labor market due to their sexual orientation or gender identity are common among the LGBT population.

Furthermore, with the rise in unemployment, the LGBT population is one of the most vulnerable, intersecting with issues of gender and race/color, massively integrating into the informal sector, which further distances them from the possibility of retirement.

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These working conditions also have a direct impact on the life expectancy of this population, especially if we consider the population of transvestites and transsexuals who have a life expectancy of 35 years, just over half of the minimum retirement age approved by the social assistance reform.

Financial emancipation can provide autonomy as one of the first steps to guarantee the exercise of full citizenship, sexual and reproductive rights, and a dignified and safe life.

However, social isolation has created new challenges for the LGBT population in remaining in the labor market. An analysis of the HIV-positive LGBT population reveals an amplification of prejudice, which is why many people do not disclose their HIV status out of fear or even due to previous experiences of being fired after their employers discovered their status. This situation forces them to choose between the risk of death from COVID-19 and the risk of unemployment in the midst of the pandemic.

It should be noted that the LGBT population is massively employed in Call Center services, entertainment, beauty and prostitution, and each of these branches has behaved differently, from adjusting to the crisis to paralyzing the sector.

Regarding adaptation, the LGBT population, due to their vulnerability, has a lower income and greater economic difficulty in obtaining work in the Ministry of the Interior.

We are still invisible in the data produced by the Federal Government and we do not know how many of the 12.9 million unemployed are LGBT, but considering the support networks, solidarity and what is seen on the streets, we can say that the precariousness of the lives of these people has accelerated enormously due to the pandemic.

Even with Congress's approval of the opposition's proposal to provide emergency basic income during the pandemic, the federal government has been delaying payments and imposing bureaucratic hurdles that have left 17 million people without any assistance so far. Furthermore, millions of LGBT people, primarily transgender and transvestite individuals, lack the necessary documentation to access the benefit. Additionally, approximately 40% of the Black and poor population lacks internet access , making online registration impossible. These circumstances have led to overcrowding as these individuals seek assistance from government agencies.

*This article is part of the ILGALAC compilation " Coronapapers "