Brazil's runoff puts the Bolsonaro family's anti-LGBTQ+ record back in the spotlight

Brazil votes again, and for the country's LGBTQ+ community the second round has become a referendum on a single family's record.

The runoff is between Flávio Bolsonaro and Lula. According to G1's political blog, the first Datafolha poll of the second round was being watched as a thermometer of the campaign, with Flávio hoping to widen his lead. On 11 October, G1 reported that Brazil's electoral court, the TSE, ordered Lula's campaign to suspend an election broadcast that linked Flávio Bolsonaro to an investigation known as the Master case.

Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. Photo: Agência Senado, via Wikimedia Commons.

A record that precedes the campaign

The Bolsonaro family's hostility to LGBTQ+ rights is not a campaign invention; it is one of the most documented aspects of its political identity, reported for years by the Brazilian and international press.

The clearest current evidence is programmatic. According to the CUT, Flávio Bolsonaro's government plan does not include LGBTQ+ rights at all and discriminates against trans athletes — meaning that, under his own document, an entire group of citizens would simply not appear in the state's plans.

What the plan does not say

A government plan is read as much for its silences as for its promises. On LGBTQ+ issues, the silence is the position.

• No chapter on LGBTQ+ rights or anti-discrimination policy

• Explicit discrimination against trans athletes

• No commitment on violence data, which is the area where Brazilian LGBTQ+ organisations say the state's absence is felt most

• No mention of the federal programmes that, according to Agência Diadorim, the TCU has flagged as having changed in recent years

President Lula in July 2026. Photo: Lula Oficial (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.

The investigations around the campaign

While the campaign presents itself as moderate, a set of investigations travels with it.

The BBC published an analysis under the headline "Vorcaro, rachadinha e milícia, os fantasmas que rondam a campanha 'moderada' à Presidência" — the ghosts, in its words, surrounding the campaign. Valor Econômico and CartaCapital have both revisited the "rachadinha" case, the investigation into the alleged diversion of salaries from Flávio Bolsonaro's former office as a state deputy. ConJur reported that a judge refused to order the removal of a video linking him to the Master case and to the rachadinhas. Brasil de Fato reported that Supreme Court minister Gilmar Mendes upheld the lifting of banking secrecy of a person under investigation in the rachadinha inquiry.

None of this is a verdict. It is a paper trail — and a candidate's paper trail is a legitimate thing for voters to read.

The family's wider record has drawn international scrutiny too. The BBC reported on a Financial Times cover story describing the clan as "tão radical quanto disfuncional" — as radical as it is dysfunctional. Intercept Brasil wrote that the family's involvement with the banker Vorcaro lays bare the machinery of corruption in the country, and Agência Pública published a piece titled, plainly, the risk of a president with skeletons in the closet.

São Paulo LGBT Pride Parade. Photo: Ben Tavener (CC BY 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons.

Why this crosses the Atlantic

For anyone outside Brazil, and especially for an LGBTQ+ audience in Europe, the case is a reminder of something easy to forget: rights are not a finished project, they are a maintenance contract.

Brazil is the country with the highest reported number of LGBTQ+ homicides in the world, and the state's response has always been contested. A government that removes the group from its own plan is not a government that will fund shelters, train police, or count the dead.

LatAm's largest democracy is not distant from Amsterdam. The same arguments — who counts, whose safety is a public cost, whether a community is a constituency or an inconvenience — are being had in every European capital, just with better manners.

What to watch

If Flávio Bolsonaro wins the runoff, the test is not what he says about LGBTQ+ people. It is what appears in the first budget, the first ministry, and the first federal programme that does or does not mention them.

The plan already tells you something. The rest is whether anyone is counting.

The allegations described in this article are press reports and ongoing investigations. The individuals named deny wrongdoing and have not been convicted in connection with them.

Sources: G1, BBC Brasil, Folha de S.Paulo, Valor Econômico, CartaCapital, ConJur, Brasil de Fato, Intercept Brasil, Agência Pública, CUT, Agência Diadorim.