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Jean Wyllys
Jean Wyllys in 2015.
Member of the Chamber of Deputies from Rio de Janeiro
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 February 2011
Succeeded by	David Miranda
Personal details
Born	(1974-03-10) 10 March 1974 (age 50) Alagoinhas, Bahia, Brazil
Political party	PSOL
Website	www.jeanwyllys.com.br

Jean Wyllys (born Jean Wyllys de Matos Santos on 10 March 1974 in Alagoinhas, Bahia, Brazil) is a Brazilian lecturer, journalist and politician who rose to fame after winning the fifth season of Big Brother Brasil. He is also notable as being Brazil's second openly gay member of parliament. He has been compared to Harvey Milk for his work.

Life

Wyllys was born in Alagoinhas, in the north-eastern state of Bahia, one of seven children. His mother was a washerwoman and his father a car painter who suffered from alcoholism. Wyllys attended a boarding school which gave him the opportunity to get a better education than the average child in his village. Wyllys later moved to Salvador and completed his degree in journalism at the Federal University of Bahia. He first rose to fame after becoming the finalist in the Brazilian reality television show, Big Brother Brasil in its fifth season in 2005. He was the first openly gay participant in the show, which caused a lot of controversy amongst fans and participants alike. Wyllys described his victory as being of "great political relevance I said I was a homosexual and I still won the programme in a country that is homophobic."

Political career

In 2010 Wyllys was elected a federal MP, representing the Socialism and Freedom party, with an average of 13,000 votes. His election was only possible, considering the number of votes he had in 2010 elections, through the so-called "voto de legenda" (party vote), a constitutional mechanism that allows candidates who don't have an large number of votes to be elected from the votes of another highly voted candidate of the same party. In Wyllys's case, the votes of another congressman of Socialism and Liberty Party, Chico Alencar, who was one of the most voted in Rio de Janeiro, helped in his election. Upon occupying a seat in the Brazilian Congress, Wyllys brought his LGBT movement activism to the scene. He started working on his political platform, which was primarily focused on the fight for LGBT rights. In so doing, he ended up confronting prominent Brazilian right-wing figures, such as pastor Silas Malafaia, a famous televangelist and national president of the Assembly of God Churches, and Jair Bolsonaro, a congressman who became Wyllys's number one enemy in the Brazilian Congress. In Congress, Wyllys proposed three controversial pieces of legislation, including the legalization of prostitution, the legalization and government regulation of marijuana production, the inclusion of Arabic and Islam studies in Brazilian school curricula and the government financing of sex reassignment surgeries and hormonal treatment for transgender teenagers and adults.

Wyllys' defense of minority rights and his very existence as an openly gay congress member and human rights activist have made him a public enemy of conservative political forces in Brazil. Living in a country with a high rate of homophobic crimes as Brazil, Wyllys began to receive death threats. These became more recurrent since his political enemies waged a slanderous campaign against him by posting and sharing in social media, including Facebook, images with quotes attributed to him about being an openly pedophile defender. Among other remarks attributed to him, was one which stated that the Bible was "a joke" Christians and Bible followers were "clowns". This was widely circulated. These attributed remarks were false. Nevertheless, people in social networks still shared them, strengthening the ongoing hate campaign against Wyllys. To repair his image damaged by the orchestrated campaign, he created a section on his official webpage where he refutes all the quotes attributed to him. Although his political image in the public sphere had been tarnished by the slanderous campaign, Wyllys ran for congress once again in 2014 and kept his chair in parliament with more than 100,000 votes, being the seventh most voted representative of Rio de Janeiro.

Today Wyllys works in the opposition to Michel Temer's government. In 2015, it was announced that Brazilian independent filmmakers were planning to produce a documentary about Wyllys's political career and activism. The documentary was released in 2016 with the title "Entre os Homens de Bem" (Among Virtuous Men). The documentary focuses on the political arena in Brazil and addresses topics such as gay marriage, LGBT rights, and features Wyllys and his conservative opponents. In that same year, Wyllys was included in the "Top 50 global personalities with an outstanding commitment to diversity" list.

Wyllys was re-elected to a third term as deputy in the 2018 election. However, in January 2019, just a few days before the swearing-in of the 56th Congress, Wyllys released a note from overseas stating that he will not assume his position as congressman in February and that he will also not return to Brazil due to alleged death threats. His replacement in the Chamber of Deputies will be David Miranda.

Notes

1. Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒeˈɐ̃ ˈwiljs d͡ʒj ˈmatws ˈsɐ̃tws].
2. Clodovil Hernandes was the first openly gay elected member of Parliament, but unlike Wyllys, Clodovil was not a gay rights activist, i.e. he was opposed to same-sex marriage.

References

1. ^ Jean Wyllys, Brazil's first openly gay MP, takes fight to the religious right, Guardian, retrieved 27 January 2012
2. With about 500 thousand votes, Clodovil is the first gay elected for federal deputy (Portuguese)
3. Janeiro, Flávia Salme, iG Rio de (October 4, 2010). "Ex-BBB Jean Wyllys é eleito deputado federal - Eleições - iG". Último Segundo. Retrieved January 24, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
4. G1, Mariana OliveiraDo; Paulo, em São (October 4, 2010). "Confira 'puxadores' de voto que ajudaram a eleger outros candidatos". Eleições 2010. Retrieved January 24, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
5. "Carregando..." Camara.gov.br. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
7. http://www.camara.gov.br/proposicoesWeb/prop_mostrarintegra?codteor=1012829
8. http://www.camara.gov.br/proposicoesWeb/prop_mostrarintegra?codteor=1237297
9. "Jean Wyllys ganha proteção policial ao sofrer ameaça de morte". Extra Online. April 9, 2013. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
10. "Verdade ou Mentira?". jeanwyllys.com.br. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
11. Dia, O. (January 24, 2019). "Blogs". Blogs. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
12. Dhiraj, <img src="https://cdn ceoworld biz/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/amarendra-bhushan-32x32 jpg" width="22" height="22" alt="Dr Amarendra Bhushan Dhiraj" class="avatar avatar-22 wp-user-avatar wp-user-avatar-22 alignnone photo" />Dr Amarendra Bhushan (November 24, 2015). "Top 50 global personalities with an outstanding commitment to diversity". Retrieved January 24, 2019. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
13. "Jean Wyllys decide não tomar posse para novo mandato em razão de ameaças". G1. Retrieved January 24, 2019.

• 1974 births
• Living people
• Big Brother (TV series) winners
• Brazilian Candomblés
• Gay politicians
• LGBT journalists from Brazil
• LGBT legislators
• LGBT politicians from Brazil
• LGBT rights activists from Brazil
• Members of the Chamber of Deputies (Brazil) from Rio de Janeiro (state)
• People from Bahia
• Socialism and Liberty Party politicians