It was exactly a fortnight after round one of Brazil’s poison-filled presidential election that Aretha Sadick found herself sprinting for her life away from a man wielding an iron bar.

“It was a hate crime. No doubt about it. Hate is the only word,” recalled the 29-year-old black transgender artist and campaigner, still shaken by her run-in with death.

“It was on a street I always walk down. An area where I always go. And I’ve never experienced such an overt act of hostility,” she said. “These things don’t happen by accident. There’s been a validation.”

Sadick and fellow members of São Paulo’s LGBT community are clear who they blame for legitimising such violence: a far-right firebrand who is notorious for his spiteful, homophobic remarks and looks very likely to become Brazil’s next president on Sunday.

In nearly three decades as a congressman, Jair Bolsonaro has never concealed his dislike of gay people. “Yes, I’m homophobic – and very proud of it,” he once proclaimed. Read more via the Guardian