Brazil’s radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed outrage at the United States on Thursday after U.S. authorities allegedly “altered” the sex on a U.S. visa issued to leftist transgender lawmaker Erika Hilton.
Lula announced that he will demand an explanation from the United States over what he described as an “abominable attitude” and instructed the Brazilian Foreign Ministry to issue a note expressing Brazil’s “disagreement with the interference of an embassy in the passport of a Brazilian woman.”
“Érica, what happened to you, in my opinion, is abominable,” Lula said at an official event Thursday in the company of Hilton, Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, and other government officials to approve bills on combating violence and protecting women’s rights.
“You didn’t go to ask for a sex change, you went to ask for a passport [sic] to travel to the United States. That’s what they should have given you. And defending that is defending Brazilian sovereignty. That’s the least we can expect,” he added.
Actually, Hilton asked for a visa.
Hilton, a man who identifies as a woman, is a member of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, representing the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL). According to the state-owned news agency Agência Brasil, Hilton requested a U.S. visa this year to participate in an official Brazilian delegation of lawmakers in the “Diversity and Democracy panel” of the Brazil Conference at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in April 2025.
The United States approved and issued the corresponding visa, identifying Hilton as male, “disregarding her [sic] rectified birth certificate and her Brazilian passport, which attest to her female gender” according to the state-owned outlet. As a result, Hilton desisted from travelling to the United States and accused the United States of “transphobia,” vowing to bring the matter to the United Nations.
Agência Brasil explained that the United States had issued a previous visa to Hilton in 2023 that listed the lawmaker’s sex as female. The outlet further explained that U.S. President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14168 on January 20, which requires the federal government to recognize sex as an immutable male-female binary and prohibits “gender self-identification” on federal documents, including visas.
Lula also called for both chambers of the Brazilian Congress to issue statements to the United States Congress on what he described as the “interference” of the U.S. embassy in Hilton’s documents and asserted that no U.S. lawmaker would be treated that way in Brazil.
“It is Brazil and she, above all, who has the right to discuss what this woman is. It’s science. It’s not Trump’s decree. So it’s important that you learn to get stirred up too,” Lula said.
Last week, the U.S. embassy in Brasília issued a statement to Agência Brasil explaining to the outlet that the U.S. government only recognizes two “immutable” sexes, male and female.
The statement reportedly read:
The U.S. Embassy advises that visa records are confidential under U.S. law and, as a matter of policy, we do not comment on individual cases. We also point out that, in accordance with Executive Order 14168, it is U.S. policy to recognize two sexes, male and female, which are considered immutable from birth.
Hilton spoke to local reporters on Thursday shortly after the event asserting that Lula’s position shows that “trans women are not abandoned and isolated.”
“The government is indeed committed, concerned, and taking a stand. We are now going to wait for the official position of the Foreign Ministry, but there was a very positive speech […] saying: ‘The Brazilian government will speak out,’” Hilton said.
“The president used this moment to make a speech that makes me very happy and gives me hope that we will continue to defend all women, working women, women in social media, women in the countryside, indigenous women and also transsexual and transvestite women,” Hilton continued.
The Brazilian outlet G1 reported on Thursday that Hilton described the incident as an act of “state transphobia” as the lawmaker had been issued a visa under the administration of former President Joe Biden with the “correct” female sex. G1 further reported that Hilton met with Foreign Minister Vieira this week to discuss the situation.
“I said to the president [Lula], ‘Look, I’m not hoping for a war to break out, for the United States to be sanctioned, punished, or asked to rectify my passport. I don’t want a fight with the United States. Now we can’t be treated as if we were in a banana republic,’” Hilton reportedly said.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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