This is the moment a Brazilian councillor is filmed blow-drying his afro during a woke Zoom meeting with officials about gender-neutral language.

The incident was filmed during an online meeting of the Committee on Constitution and Justice (CCJ) of the City Council of Curitiba, which is the capital of the Brazilian state of Parana, on 8th March.

Renato Freitas, a member of the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT) and councillor for the City of Curitiba, was filmed blow-drying his hair during a vote on the use of gender-neutral language and the replacement of masculine and feminine articles to characterise words to make non-binary people feel more represented.

Freitas entered the meeting around half an hour after it started as the report’s rapporteur Amalia Tortato was explaining the proposal presented by councillor Eder Borges of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) for the use of ‘non-binary dialect’ in the city.

Despite appearing with a hairdryer in the online meeting, Freitas did not believe that his actions affected the session.

He said: “The CCJ was starting and I was finishing blow-drying my hair. It did not compromise the meeting at all, and as the images show, it did not even last a minute.”

On 5th February, Freitas hit the headlines when he stormed the Nossa Senhora do Rosario de Sao Benedito Church in Curitiba during a protest over the murder of Congolese immigrant Moise Kabagambe.

He later apologised in the chamber over the incident, saying: “Some people were deeply offended, and to those people I sincerely and deeply apologise. I’m sorry. It was not, in fact, my intention to hurt or in any way offend anyone’s creed. Not least because I, myself, as you all know, am Christian.”