14 Facts About Erika Hilton

Erika Hilton was born in Franco da Rocha and grew up on the outskirts of Francisco Morato in Greater Sao Paulo.

Erika Hilton subsequently completed her education and started studying pedagogy and gerontology at the Federal University of Sao Carlos, although she did not graduate.

In 2015, Erika Hilton launched an online petition calling for transgender people to be given the right to choose their own names after a bus company in Itu refused to print her female name on a seasonal bus ticket.

Erika Hilton was invited to join PSOL, and ran an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to become a councillor in Itu in 2016.

In 2018, Erika Hilton joined Bancada Ativista, a political movement calling for a diversification of Brazilian politics.

Erika Hilton was part of a collective mandate which saw Monica Seixas elected to the Legislative Assembly of Sao Paulo with 149,844 votes.

Erika Hilton officially acted as an aide to Seixas, but alongside the other members of Bancada Ativista, acted "almost as a parliamentarian"; the Legislative Assembly permitted Seixas' official portrait to show all members of the collective, although only Seixas was officially recognised as a member of the assembly.

In 2020, Erika Hilton left Bancada Ativista in order to stand as a candidate for the Municipal Chamber of Sao Paulo; she was elected with 50,508 votes, the most received by a female councillor, and became the first trans woman to occupy a seat in the chamber.

Erika Hilton started her mandate in the chamber on 1 January 2021 and ran as the PSOL candidate to serve as president of the chamber, though was defeated by Milton Leite of the Democrats.

Erika Hilton was chosen as the leader of the PSOL councillors, which constituted the third largest party in the chamber.

Erika Hilton's bills included a proposal to establish a municipal fund to fight hunger, with the objective of financing public policies to ensure food security in Sao Paulo.

In March 2022, Erika Hilton announced that she would stand as a PSOL candidate for Sao Paulo in the Chamber of Deputies.

Erika Hilton's mandate included the inclusion of trans people in the Brazilian workforce.

In May 2023, Erika Hilton was unanimously elected as vice president of the chamber's human rights, minorities and racial equality commission.