Council for Global Equality
Washington, D.C.
Victoria Dandara is a travesti lawyer from Brazil, admitted to the São Paulo State Bar. She was the first openly transgender person in nearly 200 years at the University of São Paulo Law School, and the first Brazilian trans student to graduate from Harvard Law School, earning her LL.M. in 2025.
Victoria has an extensive career in human rights, with a focus on LGBTQIAP+ rights. She is the author of Direitos da Esquina, and prestigious institutions, such as the Brazilian Supreme Court recommend her papers. Before attending HLS, she gained experience in local politics, national advocacy, strategic human rights litigation, and legal education. She has lectured at the University of São Paulo Law School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and other renowned institutions.
At Harvard, Victoria deepened her expertise in international human rights law. She served as President of the Harvard Law School Brazilian Studies Association and was a student attorney in the International Human Rights Clinic, where she worked on transitional justice proposals for Haiti. Her LL.M. thesis, supervised by Professor Catharine MacKinnon, analyzed the impact of police brutality on Black mothers in Brazil and the U.S. The paper received honors and was nominated by Professor MacKinnon for the Laylin Prize for best paper in international law.
As a Kauffman Fellow at the Council for Global Equality, Victoria will work with a global coalition of LGBTQIAPN+ organizations, applying her international human rights training to confront the rising global anti‐gender movement and to advocate for queer communities worldwide.