Erika Hilton just made HERstory, and this time, the numbers are impossible to ignore.
The 33-year-old Brazilian transwoman politician has won re-election to Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies representing São Paulo, collecting 1,596,383 votes. The result gives Hilton the highest-ever vote total for a woman seeking a seat in Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies, according to Reuters.
That is a huge milestone for Hilton, and an even bigger moment for trans representation in Brazilian politics.
From city council to Congress
Hilton’s political rise began in 2020, when she was elected to São Paulo’s city council with 50,508 votes.
Then came 2022, when she moved onto the national stage. Hilton won a seat in Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies with 256,903 votes, making history alongside Duda Salabert as the first trans women elected to the federal chamber.
Four years later, Hilton’s support has grown dramatically. Her 2026 vote count is more than six times her 2022 total.
Her latest result also places her second among all federal deputy candidates in São Paulo, behind Lucas Pavanato, who received 3,038,438 votes. Hilton has also overtaken the previous record for the most-voted woman in the Chamber, held by Joice Hasselmann, who received 1,078,666 votes in 2018.
And she has already been making her presence felt inside Congress. In March 2026, Hilton assumed the presidency of the Chamber’s Committee on Women’s Rights, adding another significant first to her political career.
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The bigger picture for LGBTQ+ representation
Hilton’s achievement comes amid broader gains in LGBTQ+ representation in public office.
The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute’s Out for America Report recorded 1,334 known openly LGBTQ+ elected officials in the United States as of May 5, 2025. They represented 0.26% of all U.S. elected officials, with the number increasing 2.4% compared with 2024.
The report also found that the number of transgender elected officials had risen 783% since 2017. Looking more broadly at transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming officials, representation had increased by 1,800% over the same period.
Between June 2024 and May 2025, the number of nonbinary, transgender/nonbinary, and genderqueer/nonbinary elected officials increased from 57 to 64. Transgender women’s representation remained unchanged during that period, while transgender men’s representation grew by 12.5%.
A record worth celebrating
Statistics can sometimes make representation feel abstract. Hilton’s election puts a very real face, voice, and political mandate behind those numbers.
Her journey from a São Paulo council seat to becoming Brazil’s most-voted woman in the Chamber of Deputies is a reminder that trans people aren’t simply asking for a place in political life. They are winning seats, building constituencies, taking leadership positions, and rewriting expectations along the way.
And perhaps that is the most inspiring part of Hilton’s HERstory.
The door isn’t merely opening.
She is showing what can happen when trans people get through it and claim their seat at the table.