Councils to protect the rights of children and adolescents:

promoting the rights of LGBT+ teenagers or reproducing prejudice?

Abstract

The article reports a qualitative and quantitative research carried out by tutelary counselors for the rights of children and adolescents in the city of São Paulo. It is observed how is the perception and a tendency to behave in situations of homosexual relationships involving adolescents. These counselors indicated that they spontaneously receive cases associated with the LGBT+ population. Some of them make referrals, associating sexual behaviors between the same sex as if they were situations of sexual abuse and/or violence to the rights of adolescents; others guide referrals to psychologists and other public services, as if they were problematic. For this reason, it is considered that the Guardian Councils function as propagators of prejudice and institutional and state violence against LGBT+ adolescents, since they are bodies articulated with public policies.