A nova direita juiz-forana e a perseguição às discussões de gênero e sexualidade na educação

Abstract

This study explores the recent and ongoing neoconservative movement that, over the past seven years, has become influential in the educational agenda of Juiz de Fora. This movement has been moralizing and shaping educational issues, leading to numerous attempts to censor and remove topics related to Sexual Education from school curricula. During this period, the new National Common Core Curriculum (BNCC) was approved, but under pressure from these groups, the theme of "Sexual Orientation" was removed—a topic that had been a central part of Sexual Education in schools since 1996. Similarly, Municipal Education Plans in several Brazilian cities were affected by the neoconservative wave, resulting in the elimination of references to gender and sexuality from the curricula. This change was driven by the moral panic surrounding the so-called "gender ideology." In this study, we examine the composition of this neoconservative movement in Juiz de Fora, its motivations, and its potential impact, based on debates in the Juiz de Fora City Council. The research reveals that this movement is diverse, consisting of different groups that share a common goal of opposing these issues. The study uses the Discourse Analysis method (ORLANDI, 2015) to analyze regular and special meetings, as well as public hearings, where key bills were discussed, including: No. 4159/2015, No. 121/2016, No. 160/2016, No. 01/2017, No. 4269/2017, and No. 117/2021 from the Juiz de Fora City Council. These bills, introduced over the past seven years, have aimed to ban discussions of gender and sexuality in Juiz de Fora's education system.