Abstract
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, a growing number of Black LGBTQ+ political candidates have run for electoral positions in Brazil. In the last five years, a significant number of these candidates have won their campaigns from varying political leanings, despite the rise of neofascist, homophobic, and transphobic waves throughout the election and the subsequent failed reelection attempt of Brazilian ex-president Jair Bolsonaro. While many of these Black LGBTQ+ candidates ran on platforms that centered their own social location as a power analysis to help them understand and react to the inequalities and social hierarchies in the country, some candidates strategically weaponized their identities to work against a politics of social equity. The candidates in the latter category rejected the idea that identity has anything to do with politics. These conflicts arising in the political sphere point to tensions about the purpose of representational politics for the communities who share identities with the politician. In this article, I look at the various iterations of representation that have taken place for Black LGBTQ+ politicians in recent years, analyzing how different candidates weaponize their identities. I ask what Black LGBTQ+ representational politics looks like and argue that a fundamental difference exists between representação, a simple form of representation where Black LGBTQ+ people are entering the political sphere regardless of their politics, and representatividade, a radical form of representation that ensures that Black LGBTQ+ candidates work politically for the interests of their community and all those who are oppressed like them. In my article I use interviews I conducted with one leftist Black trans state representative, Erica Malunguinho, as well as news articles, campaign videos, and other materials produced by the campaigns of both Malunguinho and right-wing Black gay politician Douglas Garcia to understand how the two politicians mobilize identity politics in their policy work and produce radically different meanings of representational politics for Black LGBTQ+ communities.