As a gay man living in Brazil, I'm devastated we weren't able to stop Bolsonaro becoming president

My husband and I made a six-hour bus journey for both rounds of the election so that he could go back to his small rural home town to vote and help change Bolsonaro supporters’ minds

Not long after the anti-Bolsonaro protests which took place around Brazil at the beginning of October, a Facebook post, clearly intended to be seen by conservatives, for some reason popped up in my husband’s newsfeed. It sums up the platform which carried far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro to victory in the recent Brazilian presidential elections: a smorgasboard of conservative values jumbled in with security concerns and misdirected anti-corruption zeal.

It read: “The hate of these [protesters] isn’t exactly directed at Bolsonaro. The hate of these people is directed at you [Bolsonaro voters]: at those who are religious, that defend family values, that want to live a safe and simple life, that find this whole thing of a man kissing another man in the middle of the street kind of strange, that can’t accept killing a baby in the womb as something normal, and that would like to see drugs kept far away from their children. That don’t admire corrupt politicians.”

As a gay man, my husband couldn’t help but feel personally targeted by the part about two men kissing in the street. He didn’t comment on this particular post, but in the month that followed, he would become a regular participant not just in the political arguments that overtook his Facebook feed, but also in their real-life counterparts.

After all, it’s difficult not to get involved when one sees so many people supporting a man who once publicly said that he’d rather see his own son dead than in a gay relationship, and previously told a congresswoman that accused him of promoting rape that he would never rape her because she “didn’t deserve it”.

The vast majority of Bolsonaro’s campaign proposals (fusing the traditionally antagonistic ministries for the environment and agriculture, doing away with indigenous reserves, implementing distance learning at all levels of schooling, conducting sweeping privatisations…) looked set to undo years of progress in social, environmental and educational policy in Brazil.

We only moved to Sao Paulo just over a year ago, meaning that I can’t yet vote and my husband is still on the electoral register of his hometown, a small rural community in the south of the state of Minas Gerais – a six-hour bus journey away from where we currently live. We made the trip for both rounds of the election and, although ultimately the small town was pretty evenly split when it came to counting the final votes, vocal support for Bolsonaro seemed to dominate on the streets on both occasions.

It’s the kind of town where everybody knows everybody else, where the kids grow up in each other’s pockets, and it was difficult to see my husband and his siblings expressing disbelief and disappointment in childhood friends who had become ardent Bolsonaro supporters. Largely futile debates raged on Facebook as it became ever clearer that those who had already made up their minds on the matter were determined to remain firm in their decision.

At times the situation felt desperate and exasperating but my husband’s family home felt like an oasis of unity as everyone pulled together behind Bolsonaro’s electoral rival. Even my husband’s father, who rarely speaks to him since he first brought me home, offered to drive him round town to distribute pro-Workers’ Party flyers – it was by no means a reconciliation but it was, perhaps, a show of solidarity, however fleeting.

In the end, social media played an important role in Bolsonaro’s election victory, his ability to turn WhatsApp – an all-pervading app in Brazil – to his advantage through an army of impassioned “Bolsominions” is now notorious and allegations that his campaign illegally paid companies to send mass messages through the application sparked controversy shortly before the second round of voting.

But those supporting Bolsonaro’s opponent Fernando Haddad were also active on social channels. The “Vira Voto” movement began on the streets of Rio de Janeiro and quickly gained traction – as well as the endorsement of high-profile celebrities – with its proposition of persuading undecided voters and Bolsonaro supporters to reconsider their vote through polite conversation over coffee and cake. An Instagram account bearing the movement’s name was soon extending its range exponentially. The account shared stories of people successfully convincing friends and family to vote for the Workers’ Party’s candidate, encouraging others to do the same, and my husband proved to be a more than willing volunteer.

After managing to win over our apartment building’s gardener, he took his conversion attempts to the streets. I quickly picked up on the cues that meant he was steering small talk with check-out staff and Uber drivers towards the elections, and developed strategies for looking unobtrusively busy while he made his pitch.

Even with such polarising politics at play, we came across a surprising amount of reluctance to take sides in the large city where we live in the state of Sao Paulo. “I don’t vote anymore, I don’t believe in politicians,” replied a girl in the market. “So as not to upset anybody, I’ll be voting for both candidates,” joked a gentleman on our street.

But there were also those with firmer political convictions. One day, my husband arrived home saying that he’d overheard a pair of middle-aged men talking about how Bolsonaro was going to straighten out the country and hadn’t resisted the urge to call them out on it. The conversation that followed, which was conducted with the utmost civility, revealed that both men believed that Brazil had been better off during the military dictatorship – the same 1964-85 military dictatorship that Bolsonaro would like to pass off as an invention of the left.

Ultimately, the majority of voters chose to ignore the calls of campaigns like the “Vira Voto” movement. It’s difficult to know exactly what cemented Bolsonaro’s lead but widespread dissatisfaction with the country’s endemic political corruption, coupled with the reasoning that any kind of radical change is better than more of the same, no doubt played its part in swaying those who may have been on the fence.

We don’t yet know exactly what Bolsonaro’s Brazil has in store for us but minorities are understandably bracing themselves for the worst. The election has split open the cracks that already ran through Brazilian society and has divided communities that previously stood together. I do see hope though, in families like my husband’s, families of ordinary Brazilians united in the belief that everybody should be allowed to live “a safe and simple life”.

‘Alex Carter’ is a pseudonym intended to maintain the author and his husband’s anonymity for their safety