September 26 2025, 08:15 
When the 2025 Latin Grammy Awards hold its November 13 ceremony in Las Vegas, a history-making transgender musician may be among the many stars in attendance: Liniker, the first-ever out trans performer to win a Latin Grammy Award. This year, the sultry soul singer is nominated for seven Latin Grammy Awards, but she’s also gaining popularity worldwide and using her platform to advocate for love and compassion towards the trans community.
Liniker — whose music combines samba, pop, soul, jazz, dub reggae, R&B and cabaret torch songs — currently has 2.2 million monthly Spotify listeners and 1.8 million Instagram followers, but she first came out as gender fluid in a 2015 G1 interview and then came out as a trans woman in a 2017 Glamour magazine interview.
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“The process of empowerment is daily. Every day we need to look in the mirror and understand that we are wonderful, that we do have rights, and that we cannot be marginalized by society,” she said in the 2017 interview. “Prejudice is everywhere. I’m a Black trans woman. Leaving the house, which is something simple for others, seems threatening to us. It’s scary! It’s as if we’re doing something wrong! That’s why we have to occupy spaces, programs, stages… Society makes us invisible.”
Liniker was raised by a single mother and, as a young person, was exposed to jazz, R&B, and samba, which would later inspire her own sound.
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“My family always gave me the best music to listen to. And being a searching girl, I love to listen to people who inspire me, and to listen to musicians who can make a song with great texture,” she said in an interview with Gay Star News, adding that she also likes to be in touch with and embody her ancestry in her music, especially her connection to Candomblé, a South American practice that combines traditional African religious practices with elements of Catholicism.
“I would like people to respect our way of living. I talk about love amidst all the violence we are subjected to.”
She once performed as the lead vocalist for the group Liniker e os Caramelows (Liniker and the Caramels). In 2019, the band’s album Goela Abaixo (Down My Throat) received a Latin Grammy Award nomination for Best Portuguese Language Rock or Alternative Album. But she made history in 2022 by winning her first Latin Grammy Award for her debut solo studio album Indigo Borboleta Anil (Indigo Butterfly Blue).
This year, Liniker has received seven Latin Grammy nominations for her second solo album Caju (Cashew). It is nominated for Album of the Year, Best Portuguese Language Urban Performance, Best Portuguese Language Contemporary Pop Album, and Best Album Engineering; her song “Ao teu lado” (“At your side”) is nominated for Song of the Year; and her song “Veludo Marrom” (“Brown Velvet”) is nominated for Song of the Year and Best Portuguese Language Song.
Her titular song on Caju asks: “I want to know if you will / run after me in an airport … Have you memorized how many tattoos I have? … The weight of my heart? … Do you know that deep down I’m afraid / of running alone and never catching up? / Will the person who plucks the rose be there for what happens? / Some days I am needy, complete, enough / I want the corresponding love to witness. / Who will call me love, hot, sweetheart? / What will wait for me at home? / Polish the rare jewel?”
Speaking of her identity as a trans woman who grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, Liniker said, “My mother is the most important figure I’ve ever had in this regard. There’s always some sexist, homophobic uncle telling you to wear ‘men’s clothes’ and have a say in your life. But I don’t give them any attention! My mother always told me I should wear whatever I wanted. In fact, she gave me my first mascara, can you believe it?! One day, I opened my purse and found it there. It was that simple.”
“Even though I have a certain visibility (because I’m a singer), people look askance if I enter the women’s bathroom, for example. Imagine what it’s like for other people. And the road is long! Trans people are associated with nightlife and prostitution. The struggle is precisely for us to occupy other positions, such as secretaries, dentists, doctors,” she added.
“I would like people to respect our journeys,” she said in a 2021 interview. “I would like people to respect our way of living. I talk about love amidst all the violence we are subjected to,” she said.
“It’s universal,” she continued, speaking of the human need for love. “I don’t want to just belong to a niche…. I want to be heard, and I want to be seen. I want other people to have the same access and the same space to be respected.”
“Who do you think you are to lay down the rules I am supposed to follow? To each their own, to each body its history.”
“It 100% would have been impossible to do what I’ve been doing without my identity,” she told Gay Star News. “My identity is the way I want to grow, the way I want to share love and music with everybody. I’m singing to my community, but I want to sing to the world.”
Liniker played a concert this July in New York City’s Damrosch Park as part of the Lincoln Center’s Summer in the City public concert series. The month before, she played at the Electric Brixton, a music venue in London, England, and at Amsterdam’s Gran Paradiso concert hall. While in London, queer fans expressed admiration for the empowerment that the 30-year-old singer inspires in her fans.
“She’s one of our generation,” a 32-year-old fan told the aforementioned publication. “It’s so beautiful to see how a Black Trans woman like her has achieved what she achieved, and with her talent… She shows that we can do it. Her songs touch us in different places.” Another fan said, “I think all of us here feel the representation and the power of Liniker on stage.”
In 2021, Liniker also appeared in the Amazon series Manhãs de Setembro (September Mornings), playing the lead role of Cassandra, a trans-Brazilian woman who decides to leave her hometown to become a musician.
‘It’s my body. I am free to do what I want with it,” she told El Pais in 2015. “If I have this entireness, how come you want to stick your nose in it? Who do you think you are to lay down the rules I am supposed to follow? To each their own, to each body its history.”
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