Brazilian Lawmaker’s Provocative Stunt Exposes Fatal Flaw in Transgender Debate
“I am painted black on the outside. I identify as black. So why can’t I preside over the anti-racism commission? … Because I am not black.”
Leftists in the São Paulo Legislative Assembly were outraged when Brazilian politician Fabiana Bolsonaro applied dark makeup to her face and arms during a speech last week. Her provocative stunt was intended to demonstrate that putting on “blackface” does not make a white person black, just as identifying as the opposite sex does not change one’s biological sex.
Specifically, she was protesting the appointment of trans lawmaker Erika Hilton to head a women’s rights committee. Hilton is a member of Brazil’s far-left Party of Socialism and Freedom (PSOL).
Bolsonaro told colleagues, “I am a white woman. I’ve had the privileges of a white person my whole life. Now, at 32, I’ve decided to put on makeup to dress up, to cover myself up, and let only the outside show.
“And here I ask, so what now? Have I become black?”
She continued, “I felt society’s contempt for a black person who should never have existed. … I feel firsthand the pain that a black person has felt because of racism, because of not being able to get a job.
Bolsonaro even shared a fictitious anecdote about “her aunt” who, in the 1990s, was unable to find work because of the color of her skin. And she asked, “Am I black now?”
She asked rhetorically if she feels the pain that black people have suffered and declared she did not, because she is not black.
It doesn’t matter if she paints herself black or identifies as black, she said; she doesn’t know what black people go through.
Bolsonaro concluded that this is why Erika Hilton, a trans woman who has spent most of her life as a male, cannot lead the women’s rights committee. Though she identifies as a woman, she does not have the lived experience of a woman.
This position, she argued, is meant for an “actual” woman.
She is, of course, right. No matter how you slice it, a trans woman is an inappropriate choice to preside over a women’s rights committee.
Nevertheless, following Bolsonaro’s speech, left-wing lawmakers and activists have called for her to be booted from the assembly.
NEW: Brazilian politician Fabiana Bolsonaro performs blackface to show trans people that putting dark foundation on her face doesn't make her black, just like changing your body doesn't make you a different gender.
The incident was reportedly a protest against the appointment of… pic.twitter.com/ia631G3lH3
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 20, 2026
In the social media post below, an X user claimed this was a “flawed comparison” because “race and gender are not interchangeable concepts.” But then he undercut his own argument. He said, “The experiences of trans people, like those of racial groups, are rooted in lived reality not caricatures.”
They are rooted in “lived reality.” Exactly!
It’s a flawed comparison. Race and gender are not interchangeable concepts and reducing gender identity to something as superficial as “changing appearance” misrepresents what it means to be trans. The experiences of trans people, like those of racial groups, are rooted in lived…
— Dennis Ago (@dennisago_) March 20, 2026
Bolsonaro made a compelling point — one that may (hopefully) prompt some observers to reconsider their assumptions.
Either way, the early fervor of the trans movement has settled down. And there have also been some real victories along the way, including efforts to keep biological men out of women’s sports, legislation restricting so-called “trans care” for minors, and even recent declines in the number of individuals seeking to change their gender.
But the debate over identity, biology, and social norms will go on — even if with less of the intensity that once defined it.
— Anthea (@Anthea06274890) March 20, 2026
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
Party of Socialism and Freedom (PSOL)
This is internally inconsistent, You can’t have both. Choose 1. No wonder the transwoman is a member,
How about just calling it “Party Of Socialism” (POS)?
Too easy.
I wish we had some lawmakers brave enough to do stuff like this and give the wacko’s on the left the finger.
Interrestingly, according to Wikipedia, she was born Fabiana de Lima Barroso, but she “changed her surname during her 2022 election campaign to that of then President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who is not related to her.”
Wikipedia? Seriously?
circle-jerk-of-gaslighting-and-marxist-propaganda-o-pedia.com
The tranz-woman insanity is working hard to bring down the NSD*AR (National Society Daughters* of the American Revolution) right now. At Continental Congress, 2023, the exec board proposed and hastily passed a bylaw that allows amended birth certificates (male to female) to be used on proposed member applications. Their excuse was “our lawyers say we’ll lose our 501c status if we don’t!!” which is not true. The BOM also quickly and viciously stifled any discussion about this bylaw among chapter members, the stories I could tell you would curl your hair. To this day easily half of D*AR members have no idea they have been accepting men in makeup as Daughters*. But, slowly, word is getting out and a strong resistance has begun. Let anyone you all know who are members know, please. Thousands of members have resigned over the last two years.
This should be HERE: %(
To be marginally fair to the Board’s position, it might have been true AT THE TIME. Remember: Biden Department of (In)Justice and Treasury Dept. They would have had every incentive to look at 501(c)(3) organizations that were “gender specific” and try to hoist one for the simple expedient of getting everybody else to fall in line. I can completely see the NSDAR being a prime candidate exactly because it is (relatively) reasonably visible, and I can guess that somebody got wind that Treasury had painted a target on them.
Trans woman = pretend woman.
Trans man = pretend man.
.
Congress = Pretend representatives of The People
Trans woman = unattractive man who becomes even less attractive woman. I say this based on the roughly 4000 who seem to live in or frequent my Portland neighborhood.
Let’s make Mental Hospitals Great Again!
Trans woman = man
Trans man = woman
Gender and social sims exposed. Good.
The DEIsts should celebrate, but it would bring unwanted attention to their class-disordered ideologies. The truth is self-evident.
This woman makes the obviously true comparison and the leftist wokiestas lose their mind and stumble over each other claiming trans is only about choosing a ‘gender presentation’ and whether masculine or feminine ‘feels right’ for the individual. If it was just about ‘gender’ and choice of an individual in presenting as masculine/feminine v biology/parts there’d be no demand to pay for ‘transition surgery’, no demand to allow ‘trans’ competitors into sex segregated sports, no demands to allow ‘tranny’ into sex segregated areas like locker rooms, restrooms, changing rooms, no puberty blockers handed out to minor children.
Do not cede the war of words to leftists. It’s obviously a big deal to them, which is all the more reason to resist their nonsense and abuse of language.
“Transwoman” = poser.
Faker also works for me.
“How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!” ― Samuel Adams
There are fewer genetic diffferences between a white man and a black man than between a white man and a white woman. Yet the left’s pravda is that race is immutable while sex is freely changeable.
“Erika” Hilton – any relation to Paris? – is a man. Let’s stop indulging his mental illness.
Are albino children af a black couple still black?
Albino children of black parents are black.
To be marginally fair to the Board’s position, it might have been true AT THE TIME. Remember: Biden Department of (In)Justice and Treasury Dept. They would have had every incentive to look at 501(c)(3) organizations that were “gender specific” and try to hoist one for the simple expedient of getting everybody else to fall in line. I can completely see the NSDAR being a prime candidate exactly because it is (relatively) reasonably visible, and I can guess that somebody got wind that Treasury had painted a target on them.
As I understand the argument made by the Leftists in my community, Albino children of black parents being considered black has more to do with the lived experience of discrimination against the parents and lack-of-privilege the children “suffer” during formative years growing up with the black parents than any future post-emancipation experience they’re likely to have (unless they have very, very prominent African features).
I wonder if that would make the adopted child of a trans couple “trans” even though the child considered themselves to be cis-gendered appropriately to their biology….
Is the tweeter saying that race is NOT a lived experience?