A woman in Brazil is currently under police investigation for “transphobia” after she posted a joke online about archaeologists being able to discern a person’s sex by observing differences in bone structure. Speaking at a women’s rights protest in Rio de Janeiro in April, Karen Mizuno revealed that she was notified by police that she was facing possible criminal charges because she had mocked a trans activist who had stated that “archaeologists are transphobic.”
Mizuno explained that her ordeal began after an article was circulated about Lucy, a well-known fossil of a female human ancestor which dates back approximately 3.2 million years.
“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.”
This is one of the stories of persecution shared at @StandingforXX in Rio. Karen (@lesbianheresy) is being investigated by the police because one of her tweet was shared by Isabella Cepa, who faces possible arrest for "transphobia" here in Brazil. Karen's tweet simply made a joke… pic.twitter.com/cPeGfOJjU0
— MATRIA (Brasil) (@MATRIAoficial) April 5, 2025
She continued: “I took screen shots of the tweet with these accusations of alleged ‘transphobia’ by the archaeologists, which said exactly the following: ‘This tweet reminds me of something I never see people talking about. Archaeologists are indeed transphobic. That so-called Lucy, for example, are they inferring she was a woman based on the bones alone? Does that mean that if I die, in 500 or 5000 years someone might disrespect my gender because of that?”
Mizuno took a screen shot of the comment and posted it with her own commentary, writing: “With each passing day, human extinction ceases to become a fear and becomes something to hope for.” Mizuno explains that it was intended to be a light-hearted joke.
“I said nothing about ‘trans,’ there was no hateful speech, I only suggested that the question in the post was ridiculous, and clamored for the extinction of the planet.”
Mizuno told Reduxx that months later, two police officers came to her home to notify her that a criminal investigation had been opened into her comments.
“I was notified on November 19, 2024. The police came to my house but I wasn’t at home. They told my mother if I didn’t go to the police station on the scheduled date they would arrest me,” she said. “In other words, I could literally be arrested for agreeing with the archaeologists that a 3 million year-old fossil, which had a female pelvis, had been a woman.”
Mizuno explains that police first became aware of her while they were probing the social media 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.
Hilton was elected to São Paolo’s municipal government in November of 2020, winning his seat by a landslide that gave him the title of the most voted-for ‘woman’ in Brazil.
At the time of his victory, Hilton was celebrated in international media as being a “symbolic triumph” for transgender people. Hilton was amongst the top 10 most-voted for candidates in all of Brazil, and was touted as the “only woman” to make the list. Hilton filed a criminal complaint against Cêpa after she referred to him as a “man” on social media, noting that the “most voted for woman in Brazil is a man.”
Cêpa has been under criminal investigation for years, and her social media is reportedly combed by authorities regularly as they gather “evidence” of her transphobic views.
After Cêpa shared Mizuno’s archeology joke, police decided to place her under investigation for transphobia as well.
The criminal complaint against Mizuno mentions Cêpa by name, and indicates that the complaint against Mizuno was lodged after law enforcement conducted an “investigation” into posts from other accounts shared by Cêpa.
“The owner of the Twitter account ISA @afeminisa, identified as Isabel Alves Cêpa, had made a transphobic post related to councilwoman Erika Hilton,” the criminal complaint states.
“After the conclusion of the investigations, the Prosecutor’s Office carried out research on this account, observing that Isabela had republished posts shared from third parties, also transphobic, denying transgender women their gender identity.”
EXCLUSIVE:
— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) June 24, 2022
A Brazilian feminist is facing up to 25 years in prison after being charged for calling a transgender politician a "man."
Isabela Cêpa currently has no formal copy of the charges being laid against her.https://t.co/vquJ0G4oqb
Mizuno’s legal defense is herself a former member of PSOL who was expelled from her role as a co-deputy for the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo on the basis of “transphobia.” Attorney Raquel Marques was expelled from PSOL in 2021 after she made a social media post which was intended to call attention to the rights of children and youth who were being denied an education during COVID-19 pandemic policies.
“I hope one day the disrespect for the rights of children and adolescents will generate the same outrage in the minds of the left that transphobia causes,” Marques wrote.
On February 2, 2021, Marques shared the news of her suspension from PSOL along with her feelings of shock and betrayal. “The shocking justification was two posts where I defended the importance of children and adolescents’ rights and their meaning was distorted to accuse me, an LGBTQ+ woman, of transphobia. Defending children’s rights is a capital crime, as you can see.”
Speaking to Reduxx, Mizuno explains that all of Brazil is facing a “very difficult situation” with respect to its embrace of gender ideology and gender self-identification. Despite being a very conservative country, Brazil has some of the most extensive laws against transphobia in the world. In 2019, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court ruled that discrimination against ‘LGBTQ Community’ constituted a penal offense, but fell under existing race-based protections as a form of “social racism.”
“The actual government and the left here is sponsored by some international NGOs that imposes their demands, ones that are not accepted by the people and only serve to divide and conquer. But now that the US Government has changed and USAID has stopped, the ‘activists’ here who were sponsored by them are desperate,” Mizuno explains.
“I’m associated with MATRIA, which is an organization of women who are critical of the gender self-identification laws,” she says. “We are trying to resist [gender ideology] and have had some victories in favor of child safeguarding, like the ban on puberty blockers on kids. The Federal Council of Medicine also raised the minimum age for prescribing cross-sex hormones to 18, and have now banned transgender surgeries that would cause sterilization until 21. But trans activists are mad and organizing marches to try to pressure the government to reverse these changes.”
If Mizuno is found guilty of the crime of “transphobia,” she could face a prison sentence of up to 3 years.