A Rio Carnival parade will tell the story of a trans woman nearly burned at the stake

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A Carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro will present the story of a trans woman nearly burned at the stake in the 16th century, highlighting the ongoing violence against transgender people in Brazil, which has the world’s highest reported trans homicide rate.

Born as Francisco Manicongo in what was then known as the Kingdom of Kongo, Xica Manicongo was captured and enslaved in Brazil’s northeastern Bahia state. Authorities from the Portuguese Inquisition threatened her with execution for cross-dressing and having same-sex relations, both practices the Catholic Church deemed heretical.

To avoid death, she agreed to wear men’s clothing and use her male birth name — and so denied her identity.

She was rechristened Xica in 2010 in an effort to right the wrongs of the past.

The parade, scheduled for Tuesday night, four days after Carnival officially kicks off, is the creation of Paraiso do Tuiuti, one of Rio’s 12 top-flight samba schools competing in the iconic Sambadrome. Tuiuti hopes the tale of Manicongo will dazzle millions of spectators watching from the bleachers and their homes, and serve as a wake-up call.

Jack Vasconcelos, Tuiuti’s Carnival director who created its theme, said he wanted to give younger generations of trans women a sense of belonging to history.

“They deserve to appear on television, to appear to the whole world, not just in the murder statistics. They are women who produce. They’re lawmakers, they’re teachers, they’re artists,” said Vasconcelos. “They’re not people on the margins of what has happened in the world and what is happening now.”

A historical reparation

Since Tuiuti embraced Vasconcelos’ proposal, the school’s hundreds of members have been preparing for their performance. Like other parades, the show will feature sequined costumes and elaborate floats. One of its innovations is a section exclusively comprised of trans women.

“It’s a historical reparation,” said Alessandra Salazary, who has been attending weekly rehearsals for the past few months. “Paraiso do Tuiuti is giving us an opportunity to be stars in front of the cameras. This is very special for us and will really go down in history.”

The parade will feature other notable figures, including Brazil’s first trans lawmakers, Duda Salabert and Erika Hilton; Rio state lawmaker Dani Balbi and Bruna Benevides, who heads Brazil’s trans rights group Antra. Benevides identifies as “travesti,” a term referring to a specific Latin American identity that activists say is claimed by people assigned the male gender at birth, but who experience the female gender and should be treated as such. She and Tuiuti say Manicongo was likewise a travesti.

The specter of violence Manicongo faced five centuries ago hasn’t vanished.

Brazil remains the world’s deadliest country for transgender people, with 106 murders last year, according to Transgender Europe, a network of global nonprofit organizations that tracks the data. It marked the 17th consecutive year Brazil claimed this grim distinction.

Such statistics are at least partially driven by poor reporting elsewhere and Brazil’s active network of advocates, but experts agree transphobia is ubiquitous. During last year’s local elections, trans candidates were assailed with death threats and trans people continue to struggle to land jobs or secure places to live.

Sending a political message

Benevides has been working with Tuiuti to provide trans women and travestis with opportunities. For months, she has organized two classes: one teaching samba, so they can get work as professional dancers, and another for costume design. The parade has been an opportunity to strengthen bonds between the samba and trans communities while conveying a political message, Benevides said.

“We are seeing a strong anti-trans agenda in the world trying to reverse our rights, direct attacks, politically motivated attacks against our existence,” she said.

Samba schools’ parades often make political statements. Tuiuti last year told the story of João Cândido, who led a revolt in 1910 against the use of whips in the Brazilian navy. He was tortured and kicked out of the navy. Vasconcelos said at the time that he chose the theme because violence reminiscent of slavery continues to this day.

Onemonth after last year’s Carnival, Brazil’s federal public prosecutor’s office reinforced its demands for financial reparations to Cândido’s family.

Rio’s Carnival — watched by millions on local and national television broadcasts — can spark dialogue and deliver impact, said Fátima Costa de Lima, a Carnival researcher and scenic arts professor at Santa Catarina State University.

Carnival “is a great megaphone that encourages Brazilian society to discuss something often kept off the table,” Costa de Lima said.

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