In 2010, a 14-year-old boy was brutally murdered in a suburb outside of Rio de Janeiro when a group of skinheads observed him at a party and suspected that he might be gay (McLoughlin 2011). This scale of horrific homophobia is not uncommon in Brazil, where rates of violence against gays, lesbians, and transgendered people are reported to be amongst the highest in the world. A study conducted with the support of Grupo Gay da Bahia offers the conservative estimate of 260 gays killed in the country in 2010, indicating that rates doubled in only 5 years. The statistic sits uncomfortably with the image of Brazil as a sexually tolerant society, where the legalization of homosexuality was established shortly after the nation's independence from Portugal. It was therefore with a great sense of achievement for proponents of gay rights that, in May 2011, the Brazil Supreme Court agreed to award same-sex couples the same legal rights as married heterosexuals (BBC 2011). Though the decision stops short of approving marriage for same-sex couples, it has been heralded as an important step against discrimination and toward acknowledging the rights of gays, lesbians, and transgenders to love and live without the condemnation of the state. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. All rights reserved.