Alexya Salvador | |
|---|---|
 Alexya Salvador in 2017 | |
| Born | November 18, 1980 |
| Occupation(s) | Reverend, teacher |
Alexya Lucas Evangelista Salvador (born 1980) is a Brazilian teacher and reverend. She was ordained in 2019, becoming the first transgender reverend in Latin America. She was additionally the first trans woman to adopt a child in Brazil.
Alexya Lucas Evangelista Salvador was born on November 18, 1980, in Mairiporã, Brazil. [1] Her parents were Catholic but non-practicing, and at the age of seven she begged them to take her to church. She was bullied at school. [2]
When Salvador was young, and before she realized that she was transgender, she wanted to be a priest. She joined a seminary, and enjoyed attending Canção Nova events, but was made uncomfortable by anti-LGBT rhetoric. As a result, she decided that she would not become a priest, leaving the seminary but continuing to attend church. She eventually left the Catholic Church. [2]
A year and a half after leaving the Catholic Church, Salvador and her now-husband Roberto were looking for a way to get married. Salvador came across the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), which had a branch in São Paulo; she and Roberto were married as gay men in a June 2010 group wedding at the MCC. They subsequently started to attend church services there as well. [2]
At age 28, Salvador transitioned. [3] She was initially worried that coming out to Roberto as a trans woman would end their relationship, but he supported her through her transition and they remained together. [2]
Salvador began researching adoption in 2014, but couldn't find any stories of trans women or travestis who had adopted children. An adoption lawyer told her that she would be the first trans person to adopt a child in Brazil. In October 2015, Salvador and her husband adopted a boy with special needs [3] after a 6-month legal process, [2] and Salvador became the first trans woman and the first travesti to adopt a child in Brazil. The couple later adopted a transgender girl in 2016, and another in 2019. [3] Salvador is the oldest of three siblings, and wanted to have three children. [2]
As of August 2020 [update] , Salvador was living in Mairiporã with her husband, one son, and two daughters. She was seeking a location to open a branch of the MCC nearby. [2]
Salvador began working as a public school teacher in 2004. As of August 2019 [update] , she was the vice president of the Brazilian Association of Homotransaffective Families. [4]
In 2015, Salvador was appointed as an assistant pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church in São Paulo. [4]
In May 2017, Salvador held a Mass in Cuba along with Cindy Bourgeois (a Canadian trans pastor) and Allyson Robinson. Reuters reported that it was the first Eucharist led by a trans pastor in Cuban history. At the service, Salvador said that "God's love is radically inclusive." [5]
In 2018, Salvador campaigned to be a state representative for São Paulo [6] with the Socialism and Liberty Party [1] on a platform of support for LGBT rights, education, and adoption. [4]
In 2019, Salvador was officially ordained, becoming the first transgender reverend in Latin America. [7]
In June 2021, a documentary film titled Deus é Mulher ("God is a Woman") was scheduled to appear at a Docs in Progress event during the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. The film, written and directed by Bárbara Cunha, explores the life and trajectory of Alexya Salvador. [8]
Luiz Roberto de Barros Mott or Luiz Mott in São Paulo, is an anthropologist and a gay rights activist in Brazil.
Metropolitan Community Church London was the first Metropolitan Community Church congregation in Europe and the first one chartered out of the United States. The congregation was founded in 1972 as the Fellowship of Christ Liberator and at least a year later a majority indicated that they wished to affiliate with the MCC. The then minister, the Revd Tony Cross, resigned and Peter Embrey did not wish to continue to host the congregation. The name was changed and they went on to occupy a location on Sistova Road, in the Balham neighbourhood of South London. MCC London no longer exists as a congregation, but was the source of three other congregations: MCC North London, MCC East London, and MCC South London. MCC churches have a "primary ministry in gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer communities, providing a safe-space environment of an accepting congregation where people can find God's salvation, personal support, spiritual growth and guidance toward health and wholeness." The churches have been active in efforts to support marriage for LGBTQ people and specifically reach out to LGBTQ families. They have also supported efforts to educate and combat violence against LGBTQ people.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights in Brazil rank among the highest in the world. Same-sex couples in Brazil have enjoyed the same rights guaranteed to heterosexual ones since 16 May 2013, including marriage and adoption. On June 13, 2019, the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is a crime akin to racism.
Mairiporã is a Brazilian municipality in São Paulo state. It is part of the São Paulo metropolitan area. The population is 101,937 in an area of 321 km².
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Patrícia Araújo was a Brazilian actress and model. Araújo was also a former pornographic actress.
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Kátia Tapety is a Brazilian politician. She was the first transgender politician to be elected in Brazil.
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Valentina Sampaio is a Brazilian model and actress. She became Victoria's Secret's first openly transgender model in August 2019, and became the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue's first openly transgender model in 2020.
Rosa Grena Kliass is a Brazilian landscape architect. She is considered to be one of the most significant practicing designers in the history of modern and contemporary landscape architecture in Brazil. Her projects include the renovation of the Anhangabaú Valley, the Parque da Juventude, and the landscape master plan for the city of São Paulo do Maranhão. Kliass also founded and led the Brazilian Association of Landscape Architects in 1976.
Erika Santos Silva, known as Erika Hilton, is a Brazilian politician and activist for black and LGBT rights. Hilton studied teaching and gerontology before entering politics.
Cris Miró was an Argentine entertainer and media personality who had a brief but influential career as a top-billing vedette in Buenos Aires' revue theatre scene during the mid-to-late 1990s. Miró began her acting career in the early 1990s in fringe theatre plays and later rose to fame as a vedette at the Teatro Maipo in 1995. For years, she hid her HIV positive status from the press until her death on 1 June 1999, due to AIDS-related lymphoma.
Linn da Quebrada is the stage name of Lina Pereira dos Santos, a Brazilian singer, actress, screenwriter, and television personality.
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Bad Girls is the first novel by Argentine author Camila Sosa Villada, first published in Argentina on March 1, 2019, by Barcelona-based book publisher Tusquets Editores, which later published it in Spain on June 9, 2020. The story is set in the Argentine city of Córdoba and focuses on the lives of a group of travestis who work as street prostitutes at Sarmiento Park, among which is the narrator herself.
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Paula Beatriz de Souza Cruz is an educator, school principal and Brazilian activist for the rights of the LGBT population. She is responsible for the administration of the Santa Rosa de Lima State School, in Capão Redondo, in the South Zone of São Paulo, a position she has held since 2013.
The history of transgender people in Brazil encompasses their struggles and organization from the pre-colonial period to the modern day. Before Brazil's colonization, indigenous peoples respected various transmasculine and transfeminine third genders; Colonization included public executions of trans people and the systematic imposition of the Western gender binary. By the late 1800s, there were repeated arrests of black travestis and occasional sensationalized news reports of travestis. By the 1920s there were popular drag queens and in the 1950s travestis became popular stars in the theater and revue shows. In 1959 a trans man had the first gender-affirming surgery in Brazil and from the 1960s onward, LGBT periodicals publicly discussed the issues facing travestis and transexuals.