Brazilian congresswoman Erika Hilton, who is transgender, says she was issued a U.S. travel visa listing her gender as “male.”

Hilton, one of the first two out trans people elected to the National Congress of Brazil in 2022, told Folha de S.Paulo this week that she had been scheduled to participate in a panel at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s 2025 Brazil Conference earlier this month. She canceled the trip after receiving her visa.

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“I was worried about the treatment I would receive at the airport from the American authorities, given that the name is feminine and the gender described was masculine. I was scared, to be honest. And I didn’t accept subjecting myself to that kind of thing,” she told the Brazilian outlet. “I thought I didn’t deserve it, even though I was missing out on an important activity that I really wanted to participate in, I shouldn’t have to subject myself to such violence and disrespect.”  

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According to Folha de S.Paulo, Hilton was previously issued a U.S. travel visa in 2023 that listed her gender as female. When she presented documents, including her birth certificate and diplomatic passport, on which her gender is listed as female to the U.S. embassy in Brazil this year, they were ignored.

“I felt violated, disrespected and I felt that my country’s powers were being invaded by a completely delusional person, a sick man who occupied the presidency of the United States and feels he owns the truth,” Hilton said, referring to President Donald Trump. “My Brazilian civil documents were disrespected.”

Since taking office on January 20, Trump has signed several anti-trans executive orders. His “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” executive order declared that the U.S. government would only recognize an individual’s biological sex as determined by their “immutable biological classification as either male or female.” It also directed the secretaries of state and homeland security and the director of the Office of Personnel Management to require that government-issued identification documents — including passports, visas, Global Entry cards, and personnel records — “accurately reflect the holder’s sex.”

Following Trump’s February 5 executive order calling for a national and international ban on trans female athletes in girls’ and women’s sports, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a memo directing U.S. consulates and immigration offices worldwide to ban transgender visa applicants under a section of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act requiring a “permanent fraud bar” for people who lie on their visa applications. Legal experts have noted that the new visa guidance’s language is so broad it applies to all new transgender visa applicants, not just athletes.

In a Wednesday, April 16, Instagram post, Hilton said she was not surprised to receive a visa that misgendered her, as she was aware that trans people in the U.S. have been receiving similar documents in recent weeks. In February, Euphoria actress Hunter Schafer said she’d received a new passport that identified her as “male.” And earlier this week, Canadian singer-songwriter Bells Larsen canceled his U.S. tour dates after being told that he would be unable to get an accurate visa because he is trans.

In her Instagram post, Hilton blasted the U.S. for “ignoring official documents from other sovereign nations, even from a diplomatic representative,” but said she was even more concerned “that a country is ignoring official documents about the existence of its own citizens, and altering them according to the narrative and desires of the President of the day to take away rights.”  

Hilton told Folha de S.Paulo that she intends to take legal action against Trump at the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and said she hopes Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs will press the U.S. ambassador for an explanation. According to the outlet, the U.S. embassy in Brazil has not commented on Hilton’s visa application.

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