Two state deputies will be part of the LGBTQIA+ bench in the Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais (ALMG): Bella Gonçalves (PSOL) and Dandara Tonantzin (PT). In the Federal Chamber, Duda Salabert (PDT) takes over as the first trans deputy elected by Minas Gerais voters.
This Wednesday (1st), state and federal deputies and senators elected in October 2022 take office for their terms in legislative assemblies and in the National Congress. Of these parliamentarians, 18 are LGBTQIA+, as shown by a survey by the NGO VoteLGBT, which monitors and maps candidacies from this population across the country and published by Diadorim.
Bella Gonçalves
Bella was elected state deputy in 2022 / Photo: Reproduction
Today, the Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais swore in the first lesbian deputy in history. Bella Gonçalves (PSOL) was elected councilor twice for Belo Horizonte. Lesbian and young woman, she was the third most voted in the Psol / PCB coalition in 2016. In the 2020 election, Bella Gonçalves was elected with expanded voting, having obtained 6,954 votes.
Bella is a political scientist and holds a PhD from UFMG and the University of Coimbra (Portugal), with extensive experience in the struggles for the right to the city and for a popular and feminist urban reform.
Dandara Tonantzin
Dandara was elected federal deputy in 2022 / Photo: Reproduction
Dandara Tonantzin (PT), who is now a federal deputy, is a 26-year-old who has studied in public schools her entire life. She entered the Federal University of Uberlândia at age 16 as a quota student in the pedagogy course. Dandara has always combined student movement struggles with all social movement struggles. Today, she is a militant in the black and feminist movement, and is studying for a master’s degree in education at the Federal University of Minas Gerais.
She was the youngest black woman elected in the Chamber of Uberlândia (MG) and the most voted councilwoman in the 2020 municipal elections.
Doubt Salabert
Duda was elected federal deputy in 2022 / Photo: Reproduction
Born in Belo Horizonte, Duda Salabert Rosa has been a literature teacher for 20 years, with her pedagogical role in popular education and in the private school system. In the sphere of popular education, she idealized and coordinates Transvest in BH, an educational project that offers free pre-university courses for transsexuals and transvestites.
Married and mother of Sol, she was the first transsexual in Brazil to take the right to maternity leave for 120 days through the INSS and to run for the position of senator and, even though she was not elected, she received more than 351 thousand votes – a fact that the ranked as the fourth most voted woman in the history of elections in Minas Gerais. Elected for her first term by the PDT, Duda Salabert broke the record for votes in Belo Horizonte City Council, with 37,613 voters. In 2022, she was elected federal deputy.
Source: BdF Minas Gerais
Editing: Larissa Costa
