Brazil at a Crossroads for LGBT Rights
Erica Hellerstein
April 5, 2011 

http://www.thenation.com/article/159703/brazil-crossroads-lgbt-rights

On March 19, President Barack Obama flew to Brazil to kick off a three-country tour of Latin America. His five-day visit to El Salvador, Brazil and Chile—countries in a region often called "America's backyard"—presented an opportunity to redefine America's historically thorny foreign policy towards Latin America.

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However, as newly elected Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff noted while welcoming Obama to Brazil, "We still face enormous challenges." One such challenge is the alarming and infrequently discussed rise in attacks on and murders of LGBT Brazilians. According to the Association for Women's Rights in Development, Brazil suffers from the highest rate of transphobic violence in the world, and is cited as the "world's deadliest place to be transgender." Last year, at least 250 LGBT people were murdered in Brazil.