Voices in Conflict

Erika Hilton, Same-Sex Marriage, and the Deterritorialization of Nihilistic Discourses in Parliament

Abstract

This article investigates the axiological positions of Congresswoman Erika Hilton (Psol) in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, emphasizing her performance as a discursive force that deterritorializes nihilistic and hegemonic conservative discourses—particularly those rooted in Christian fundamentalism. By reaccentuating ideologies that deny the existence and rights of the LGBTQIAPN+ population, Hilton breaks with veiled pacts of exclusion and introduces into the institutional sphere a politically performative discourse that claims the right to same-sex marriage. Grounded in a qualitative approach, the study analyzes the axiological positions assumed by Hilton during a solemn session in the Chamber of Deputies, in which she confronts ultraconservative rhetoric. The theoretical framework draws from Bakhtin, Volóchinov, and Medvedev, as well as Butler and Preciado. The research also incorporates the legal framework that criminalizes homophobia in Brazil, situating the juridical and symbolic potency of Hilton’s political action. The results reveal how her discursive presence reconfigures the stabilized meanings of old politics by instituting an ethics of responsibility and otherness. By destabilizing normative utterances of erasure, silencing, and extermination of “infamous” bodies, Hilton constructs an inclusive political horizon, reaffirming language as a territory of ideological struggle and social transformation.