From the 16th-century transvestite priests called nganga-ia in Angola wielding unchecked authority, to Brazil’s Supreme Court equating transphobia with racism, the echoes of history remain resonant.
In 1591, a slave named Duarte was harassed by another enslaved man, Joane, who wished to be treated as a woman by him. Their conversation, held in the African language of Bahia’s black community, was unintelligible to their Jesuit masters. Using a Portuguese interpreter familiar with Angolan dialects, Duarte lodged a complaint with the Jesuits, who subsequently sold Joane to Bastião de Faria. Despite this, Joane persisted in seeking a relationship with Duarte as a woman. Duarte attempted to dissuade Joane by warning of the threat of execution by burning, but Joane cited Francisco Manicongo—a slave of cobbler Antônio Pires on what is now Ladeira da Misericórdia—as precedent, asserting that he engaged in similar relations with many black men and escaped punishment.
The year 1591 also marked the visit of the Holy Office. Duarte brought a formal grievance, making this story known. When the Inquisition searched Francisco Manicongo’s home, he was found dressed in women’s clothes. Centuries later, historian and anthropologist Luiz Mott uncovered these records in Lisbon’s Torre do Tombo archives.
Once separated from his wife—at a time when divorce did not exist in Brazil—the former Dominican novice published an article in 1985 that rescued Francisco Manicongo from obscurity, praising him as “Brazil’s first transvestite” and a “courageous homosexual,” employing masculine articles and endings (Portuguese, like other Romance languages, features more gender distinctions in articles and inflections than in pronouns). By then, Mott had become a prominent gay leader, heading Brazil’s longest-established gay rights group, the GGB. This was an era of political liberalization and democratization in Brazil, marked by the rise of numerous minority rights organizations.
In the 21st century, Brazil has not only legalized divorce (initiated under the Lutheran president Geisel) but also legalized same-sex marriage and consequently gay divorce. This was not a popular legislative decision but rather one imposed by the Supreme Federal Court, which exerts interpretative power over the Constitution similar to Calvin’s biblical interpretations in Geneva, wielding authority over officials comparable to Calvin’s control over Servetus. Recently, the court declared that “transphobia” is equivalent to racism, and “transphobic” slurs align with racial insults. One consequence of this ruling is Brazil’s first political refugee in Europe: Isabella Cêpa, who faces up to 20 years imprisonment for “transphobic” tweets and for claiming that the transvestite Érika Hilton is a man.
Amid this atmosphere, the narrative of Francisco Manicongo took on new dimensions—and Luiz Mott, its discoverer, was labeled “transphobic.” Identity-politics groups, unfamiliar with historical research methods, condemned Mott for “deadnaming” Xica Manicongo and for using “homosexual” instead of “trans woman” to describe her (Xica being a diminutive of Francisca, the feminine form of Francisco). In 2022, Érika Hilton herself proposed legislation to name a street in São Paulo after Xica Manicongo, asserting: “For years, historiography portrayed Xica as Francisco, murdering her right to memory. Only through the movement of transvestites and trans people within academia did it become possible to bring to light the truth about Xica Manicongo’s story” (Mott, Xica Manicongo, p. 203).
By 2026, the octogenarian Luiz Mott released Xica Manicongo: Brazil’s First Transsexual, a work combining scholarly research with a reflection on the activist movement he helped establish. The book recounts the known details of Francisco Manicongo’s life alongside the evolution of his story within the context of Brazil’s LGBTQ movement.
For example, in 1985, transvestites identified themselves with masculine language and saw themselves as gay men who dressed as women. Today, despite Érika Hilton’s identification as a transvestite, referring to her as “o travesti Érika Hilton” (with the masculine article) could lead to arrest for racial insults. The shift to using the feminine article “a travesti” originated in Brazil in 1997 through Luiz Mott’s GGB group, inspired by Argentina; a rebellious innovation has morphed into an oppressive rule in under thirty years. The book also reveals that activists have exaggerated Francisco Manicongo’s story, falsely claiming that the name “Xica” was used during his lifetime and that he was burned at the stake by the Inquisition—a fabrication. In reality, the nickname “Xica” was coined by a transvestite friend of Mott’s, and no homosexual was ever executed by the Portuguese Inquisition or secular authorities in Brazil, even though such sentences were legally possible. The last known record indicates Francisco promised to wear his master’s male clothing. Duarte was advised to avoid Joane and ignore his advances.
On the scholarly side, Mott corroborates the limited biographical data on Francisco Manicongo with historical and cultural sources from the Kingdom of Kongo—today’s Angola—including writings by sailor and cartographer Antonio Pigafetta (1491–1534), Capuchin friar Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo (1621–1678), and military officer Antônio de Oliveira Cadornega (1623–1690). I found two points particularly striking: 1) before Portuguese contact, the Kingdom of Kongo was dominated by transvestite tyrants; and 2) these transvestites were reared as girls by their mothers.
Consider the historical accounts. Friar Cavazzi noted, “among the sorcerers, there is one who […] is called nganga-ia, quimbanda, or ‘chief priest of the sacrifice.’ […] To signify his ministerial role, he dresses in women’s clothing, adopts female mannerisms and posture, and calls himself the ‘Great Mother.’ No law condemns him, nor are any actions forbidden. Therefore, he is never punished, even for shameless immodesty […]. Given the authority of these nganga, no jaga [war leader] […] dares exercise jurisdiction or decision-making without their counsel” (Mott, pp. 110–111).
A Jesuit chronicler gives insight into how the nganga-ia was selected. In 1582, a feared sorcerer confessed, after having his hair cut and exchanging female attire for male clothes, “that he had been born a man, but the devil commanded his mother to raise him as a woman, or he would die” (Mott, p. 104).
Today, mothers who instill a trans identity on children play a pivotal role in trans activism. The tragic stories of Jazz Jennings (the first trans reality TV star) and Avery (featured on the cover of National Geographic) are well-known; both are now castrated and unable to experience sexual pleasure. Those wanting to witness maternal mistreatment of a trans child should watch this video about Josie Romero. The child asks his mother whether she would still love him if he wanted to be a boy rather than a trans girl, pledges obedience, and breaks down in tears when assured he will not be forced to be a boy. This child was later castrated.
Its origins are understood to lie largely in pharmaceutical interests and “woke” ideology, which deploy psychologists to warn parents of their children’s risk of suicide without compliance—paralleling the devil’s threats of the 16th century. Opponents argue that no child should undergo such treatment and concede that Catholicism replaced a genuinely harmful belief system in Angola.
The historical parallel is even more telling today: if transvestites once held unchecked religious authority, their modern counterparts in society might be seen as quasi-religious figures exercising comparable influence. What would Comte think if told the metaphysical stage was replaced not by the positive stage but by a resurgence of the most intense theological fetishism?
To illustrate, consider recent developments in Isabella Cêpa’s case (previously covered here and here), which also involve me. Érika Hilton appeared on the 20 Minutos talk show, hosted by Breno Altman (affiliated with the Workers’ Party), who read aloud my question. I asked whether she intended to imprison all of Brazil as she attempted with Isabella Cêpa. Her answer was affirmative, branding Isabella a criminal and equating anyone denying that women have penises with Nazis.
Clearly, labeling a person legally exonerated as a criminal amounts to defamation itself. Naturally, Isabella Cêpa sued Érika Hilton. Unfortunately, she also sued the interviewer, who behaved like a true atheist by treating the transvestite as a human, not as an untouchable priestess reminiscent of Angolan paganism. The reason Érika Hilton remains unruly in public despite serving two legislative terms appears tied to her worship by certain groups as either a sacred cow or an nganga-ia.
Since the Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that interviewers bear responsibility for the defamatory words of their guests, Isabella Cêpa effectively cannot be interviewed unless she can avoid referring to Érika Hilton with masculine grammar. (Suggestion: use “the person Érika Hilton,” as “person” is feminine in Portuguese.) It is worth noting the journalist faces multiple lawsuits over his anti-Zionism. Érika Hilton’s statements on his show were featured in a documentary by the women’s group Mátria portraying Isabella positively.
While the suit against her was dismissed, recently another woman, influencer Bianca Barreto, was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 20,000 reais for asserting that a trans politician (married to a woman and a parent) is a man. Will this case reach the Supreme Court as well? If so, will Bianca require asylum in a First World country to deter the justices? How many legal battles must unfold to overturn the ruling that equates transphobia with racism?
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