For Brazil's first openly gay congressman, the constant death threats have become too much to handle.

So much so that he won't be serving a new term, because he's leaving the country for good.

In a letter to his political party, Jean Wyllys wrote, the constant threats made his life unbearable and that he barely left his home in Rio adding that his mother and siblings were also threatened.

Since far-right president Jair Bolsonaro was elected in October, Wyllys says violence has worsened in a country that had one of the worst murder rates of 2018.

Last year, popular Rio Councilwoman Marielle Franco and member of the same party as Wyllys, was murdered execution-style.

Wyllys has been living with bodyguards ever since.

But the last straw was learning that the president's son and Rio state senator, hired relatives of a fugitive ex-cop, thought to be involved in Franco's assassination as part of his staff.

Wyllys took to Twitter on Thursday (January 24), writing: "Safeguarding a life that is threatened is a strategy to fight for a better day." Wyllys, a two-term congressman who fought for gay rights and against religious discrimination and violence against women will be replaced by another gay lawmaker: David Miranda, a Rio Councilman and husband of Pulitzer-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald.