Brazilian University Workers Facing Up To Five Years In Prison For “Social Racism” After Misgendering Transgender Student

A female janitor and a University administrator in Brazil are facing up to 5 years in prison for “social racism” after a trans-identified male student reported them to police for “transphobia.” The student, Odara Moraes, had taken offense to being asked to use the men’s restroom.

The incident occurred on October 14 of 2022 at the Federal University of Paraíba, one of the two main public Universities in the coastal eastern state of Paraíba, Brazil. That day, Moraes entered one of the women’s washrooms on campus only to be confronted by a female janitor who challenged his presence in the women’s facilities.

The janitor, who has asked to be anonymized and will be referred to as Luiza for the purposes of this article, had been working at the campus for nine years, but told Reduxx that she didn’t frequently get assigned to the department where the incident occurred.

“That day, I was backup. I did have a fixed department, but I had asked to be placed on technical reserve as floating staff so I could work in different areas of the campus and make new friends,” Luiza explains. “I’d worked at [the University] for almost nine years, and I had never experienced an issue like this before. It was always ‘female bathroom’ and ‘male bathroom.’”

Luiza says she entered the women’s washroom with her co-worker to see Moraes, a biological male she describes as having been wearing a “crop top and mini skirt.” Without hesitation, Luiza politely informed him that he was not in the correct washroom, a statement she said had not been intended to cause offense.

“I didn’t mean to offend anyone or hurt anyone. I just spoke to him politely, and I was politely bothered. Because it was a female space, not a male one. I was simply speaking about a fact, about a right — my right as a woman to defend our space, a female space. I had never seen anything like that before — a man using a women’s bathroom,” she says. But Moraes immediately became combative, pulling out his phone to begin filming her and calling her “transphobic.” He also demanded that she refer to him with feminine pronouns.

Upon realizing that Luiza was a contracted employee at the University, he demanded to speak with campus administration. Unsure of what else to do, Luiza brought Moraes to the office of Luiz Adripaulo, the school’s administrative director. During the short journey to the office, Luiza says that Moraes continued to lambast her, calling her names and accusing her repeatedly of transphobia.

Adripaulo attempted to de-escalate the situation, but Moraes refused and instead repeatedly asserted that he would call the police and press charges against Luiza for “transphobia” – a criminal offense in Brazil. Unsure of what to do, Adripaulo asked Moraes if he had any legal documents proving he was a woman, but Moraes responded that his “word” should simply be enough. After being misgendered by Adripaulo, Moraes stormed out of the office screaming that he had been “discriminated against.”

Four days later, Luiza and Adripaulo were contacted by police, informing them they were under investigation for transphobia.

“In my 41 years, I had never set foot in a police station in my life. It was the first time. And I was worried — I thought about my children, my family. It was the kind of worry any parent would have. I never imagined something like this would happen to me,” Luiza told Reduxx. Her sentiment of fear was echoed by Adripaulo, who explained that he began to struggle with anxiety.

“I came to work feeling discouraged, almost angry, struggling to avoid depression and not pass on the psychological and emotional pressure I was experiencing to my subordinates. I became distracted from my work activities and fell behind on many tasks,” he says.

After learning about the incident, trans activists on campus, likely under the instruction of Moraes, began targeting Adripaulo directly. Graffiti was spray-painted outside of his office, and he was labeled a “fascist” by other students.

Mr Adripaulo is the other UFPB university worker criminally prosecuted by the state for “transphobia”: the man who was in the female bathroom and didn’t like being questioned about it by the cleaning lady, took matters to Mr Adripaulo, who did extraordinarily, as you will see… pic.twitter.com/UT62VqPyTR

— MATRIA (Brasil) (@MATRIAoficial) March 26, 2025

Word also spread amongst Luiza’s colleagues, and she felt unsupported by her employer – a third party service contracted by the University.

“I actually saw many people start distancing themselves from me. No coworkers supported me — not to say I was right or wrong, just nothing. Everyone who approached me said I was wrong. That I shouldn’t have spoken up, that I shouldn’t have gotten involved, that I should’ve just not used the bathroom or whatever,” Luiza recounts.

In early 2023, when the company’s contracts were up for renewal, Luiza was not called back to return to her position, leaving her abruptly unemployed after almost a decade. She has been unable to find consistent work since, and speculates it is because of what happened at the University.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know if that’s why I’m still unemployed. I’ve even applied for unemployment, but still nothing. And I also have a five-year-old daughter. It’s hard to find a job because I can only work during the hours she’s at daycare — from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. And there just aren’t many jobs with those hours,” Luiza says. “Monday to Friday is especially hard. My husband works, my son works too. I have no one to watch my daughter.”

Luiza and Adripaulo were formally charged in October last year with aggravated prejudice under the classification of “social racism,” an offense created by Brazil’s Supreme Court in 2019 when it found that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity was in fact covered under already pre-existing anti-discrimination laws relating to race or national origin. The trial itself began in March of 2025, with a decision expected in the coming weeks. The sentence for the crime, formally registered as “racial injury,” carries a potential prison sentence of 2 to 5 years.

“I never imagined I would go through something like this. What I have been through deeply affected my personal and mental well-being. I have become anxious. I have anxiety attacks, you know?” Luiza says. “I am worried, too. Because I don’t think I did anything wrong — I was defending my right as a woman. So, yes… I am worried. Sometimes, even just leaving the house — I don’t have the motivation to go out.”

Adripaulo says his family life has similarly been impacted by the legal proceedings, with his wife and children struggling to understand why he was being targeted.

“Emotionally, my family and I were devastated, we didn’t know how to react. My wife cries in the early hours of the morning; One day I woke up, she was crying on the sofa,” he says. “I made a tremendous effort not to let my children and wife notice what emotional state I’m in right now.”

After being made aware of their situation, MATRIA Brazil, a women’s rights organization, stepped in to offer financial and legal assistance to the two workers.

“In Brazil, we have seen numerous attempts to undermine legal safeguards and collective agreements that guarantee gender-segregated spaces,” said MATRIA in a statement. “In practice, these demands violate spaces designated exclusively for women, allowing the entry of men, under the pretense that such individuals feel like women or identify with the ‘feminine gender.’”

Over the years, MATRIA has been active in supporting individuals in Brazil impacted by gender identity ideology laws, and has encouraged anyone facing prosecution to reach out to them for support.

“I thank MATRIA for its attention, struggle, and support. The position of an association like MATRIA is of utmost importance; it helps me greatly legally, morally, and socially when it has the courage to stand up to such violent coercion against people who simply want to live,” Adripaulo said, expressing gratitude for MATRIA’s support during the difficult trial, and crediting his faith for his strength to move forward.

Luiza and Adripaulo are not the first Brazilians to face a harsh criminal investigation and prosecution for “transphobia.”

In May, Reduxx reported on the case of Karen Mizuno, who revealed that she was notified by police in November last year that she was facing possible criminal charges because she had made a “transphobic” joke about archeology.

“The situation was, there was an article going around about the bones belonging to the fossil of Lucy, and how the archaeologists found out that she was a woman, because of the pelvic bone,” Mizuno said. “Trans activists were saying that attesting that Lucy was a woman, because of her female pelvic bone, was transphobia. In other words, they said she could be a trans man. They really think that someone who lived three million years ago had a ‘gender identity.’ It’s an unreasonable argument, an anachronism.”

Mizuno jokingly tweeted out that hearing such an opinion made her think that the extinction of humanity was something to hope for, not fear, and as a result the investigation started up against her.The tweet was discovered after police continued to comb down the Twitter timeline of Isabela Cêpa, another women’s rights activist who they were similarly investigating for criminal “transphobia.” As previously reported by Reduxx, Cêpa has been threatened with up to 25 years in prison for “misgendering” a transgender politician named Erika Hilton.

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