"Under The Rule of Gorillas": The Persecution of Homosexual Employees of Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Times of AI-5

Abstract

During the Brazilian hetero-military dictatorship, discourses that related homosexualities to subversion justified the removal of LGBTQIA+ people from public spaces. This article explores the repression of homosexual employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE) after the implementation of the severe Institutional Act No. 5 (AI-5) [a notorious decree known as the 'coup-within the coup']. Documents relating to the cases of the Commission of Summary Investigations of 1969 (CIS 69) and the Commission of Amnesty linked to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of 1986 are analyzed. The results relativize the corporativism of the Ministry, highlighting the heterosexual matrix of the institution.

Brazilian military dictatorship; Homosexuality; Itamaraty; the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Repression