Federal prosecutors in Brazil are seeking to put a veterinary student back on trial for “transphobic” social media posts despite a unanimous court ruling earlier this year stating that she had committed no crime. Isadora Borges faced up to ten years in prison before the prosecution was halted in March, and prosecutors are still pushing for her criminalization.
Borges was first charged in November of 2020 after being reported to authorities by Erika Hilton, a trans-identified male politician from the left-wing Socialism and Liberty Party. Hilton had been monitoring the Twitter account of a women’s rights advocate named Isabella Cêpa, whom he had also reported to police for referring to him as a “man.”
On her Twitter account, Cêpa had retweeted two posts made by Borges, one of which stated that trans-identified males were not women because they had been born male, while the other discussed Simone de Beauvoir’s distinction between being born female and the social expectations imposed on women. It argued that identifying as transgender, taking synthetic hormones, undergoing surgery or changing clothing did not alter a person’s DNA.
For her two posts, Borges was charged 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. Cêpa was charged under the same law.
Court records show that federal prosecutors filed the charges on February 17, 2025, and that a judge accepted them on April 29. Borges’ lawyers sought to have the prosecution stopped, arguing that the posts expressed philosophical and scientific views without any intention to incite discrimination.
On March 12, 2026, the Third Panel of the Federal Regional Court of the Fifth Region unanimously ordered the criminal proceedings closed. Its written judgment found no attack or threat against trans-identified people, individually or as a group, and no call for violence, hostility or discrimination.
The ruling warned that criminalizing dissenting philosophical or scientific opinions about sex and gender would suppress intellectual debate, and that criminal law could not be expanded to turn legitimate disagreement into an offence.
Before the dismissal, prosecutors argued that a trial was necessary to establish whether Borges intended to discriminate. The panel rejected that position, finding that the absence of discriminatory intent was apparent from the posts themselves.
But prosecutors are unsatisfied, and are now seeking to revive the case through a special appeal.
In their latest filing, prosecutors argue that the court focused “too narrowly” on incitement to hostility or violence, overlooking discrimination committed through the statements themselves. They contend that the “systematic denial of gender identity” could itself constitute discrimination, independently of any actual harm or incitement.
They also argue that the judges prematurely decided Borges lacked discriminatory intent and exceeded the scope of the procedure used to halt her prosecution. They ask for the dismissal to be overturned or, alternatively, for the court to address their argument about discrimination independently of incitement.
On October 21, the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, a freedom of speech-oriented law firm providing legal support to Borges, announced the renewed attempt to prosecute her.
If prosecutors are successful, Borges could again face two charges of “social racism,” each carrying a prison term of two to five years.
“It is terrifying to know that my case could reopen and that I may once again face time in prison, but it is important to me that I always speak the truth,” Borges said in ADF’s statement.
“Too many Brazilians have been criminalised or bullied into silence out of fear they will be punished for ‘transphobia’. When we say men cannot become women, we are not spreading hate or targeting anyone; we are stating a biological fact,” she added.
“I hope the court will uphold its previous decision and that my case will go on to stand for our right to speak freely,” Borges concluded.
“Earlier this year, the court rightfully found that Isadora did nothing unlawful by expressing her beliefs on X,” said Julio Pohl, ADF’s legal counsel for Latin America. “By attempting to reopen this case, the state is showing once again that it will go to great lengths to silence speech it doesn’t like.”
Pohl further criticized the use of transphobia allegations to silence dissent.
“Accusations of ‘transphobia’ are being rampantly used to censor and scare Brazilians into silence. Isadora’s case is one of many living proofs of this. Brazil’s ongoing crackdown on free speech must stop. The Court’s initial ruling set an important legal precedent that opinions are not grounds for criminal charges for the so-called crime of ‘transphobia’,” Pohl continued. “We urge the Court now not to backpedal on its decision and uphold freedom of expression.”
On X, women’s rights advocate Isabella Cêpa denounced the renewed efforts to prosecute Borges.
“The psychological and procedural violence perpetrated by [Erika Hilton] against me and Isadora knows no bounds. Someone needs to stop this individual. Isadora has already suffered TOO MUCH!!!!”
As previously reported by Reduxx, Cêpa herself was aggressively pursued in a lengthy criminal investigation after she made a social media post about Erika Hilton – a male politician who “identifies” as a woman. Hilton was elected to São Paulo’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 later reported Cêpa, an outspoken feminist activist, to the police for referring him to a “man” in her social media reaction to his electoral victory, prompting a criminal investigation. In January 2022, authorities summoned Cêpa to a station for questioning.
After speaking with police, Cêpa remained unaware of any further developments in her case until June 2022, when a reporter from a major Brazilian newspaper contacted her for comment on an article about the charges. It was only after the article was published that Cêpa discovered she was being charged with five counts of “social racism.” From the news article, Cêpa discovered that she was facing up to 25 years in prison for the supposed “crime.”
In 2025, Cêpa has successfully obtained refugee status with the assistance of the European Union Agency for Asylum — making her the first Brazilian citizen to receive this designation for state persecution since 1985. With that, Cêpa became the first person to obtain refugee status for political persecution on the basis of their gender critical beliefs.
Later on that same year, Cêpa’s case reached the Supreme Court of Brazil, which ultimately handed down a ruling in her favor.
Speaking to Reduxx, MATRIA Brasil spokeswoman Clarice Saadi condemned the renewed efforts to prosecute Borges, and noted that it was part of an anggressive effort to chill free speech in Brazil.
“The amount of time and effort the State is wasting to try to convict a woman for quoting Simone de Beauvoir and saying that trans women aren’t women, is simply unbelievable,” Saadi says.
“Brazil has so many problems and this is what the Public Prosecutor’s Office is worried about? The judicial system has already stated that Isadora Borges should never have been prosecuted, that she committed no crime, but the State insists on having her punished for so-called ‘transphobia.’ It’s infuriating. A woman’s life has been upheaved, with terrible consequences for her mental health, for nothing. Or better yet, to satisfy the whims of Erika Hilton, who dreams of having women who say that no one can change sex arrested.”
