2000: I return to Nicaragua after being away for two years to find the capital city transformed with a new city center boasting hotels, shopping malls and multiplex cinemas. The movie Boys Don’t Cry is playing and its story of sexual transgression in the U.S. Midwest is meeting a favorable response, at least among those I talk to in the progressive community. Rita, a long-time AIDS activist and self-proclaimed “dyke,” tells me she wishes all the legislators in the country would see it and expand their notion of citizen rights to include sexual minorities.
2002: “I’m neither in the closet nor on the balcony,” is the way that Carlos, a Nicaraguan in his early thirties, describes himself to me during Gay Pride week in June. We are sitting with a couple of other men in the local gay bar they run, waiting for a panel discussion to begin on HIV and safer sex practices. While Carlos is quite comfortable with his sexuality as a gay man and has a middle-class awareness of the globalized identity that “gay” confers, like many others in Managua’s LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) population he does not feel a need to proclaim his identity loudly.
2003: At a weekly Sunday service of the gay Metropolitan Church in Managua, the young pastor named Alberto speaks of “God’s love for everyone, rich and poor, gay, straight, lesbian and bisexual.” The dozen assembled men—including several I know as renowned drag queens, here wearing street clothes—and a couple of women pass a candle from one person to the next, saying “God loves you as you are.” They take communion and Alberto gives thanks to the jornada, in reference to Gay Pride week, for allowing the LGBT community to speak out about human rights. They conclude their mass with guitar music and flirtatious dancing on the patio. A few days later, some of these same individuals are present when I give a talk based on my research on lesbian and gay politics and culture in Nicaragua. The venue is Puntos de Encuentro (Gathering Points), Nicaragua’s largest feminist nongovernmental organization (NGO), and I am addressing the small community of activists and their allies. The audience includes women and men who work in other NGOs such as Xochiquetzal, which offers services relating to health, sexuality and AIDS. After I finish, a lively conversation ensues about whether there is truly something that can be called a “movement” in the country. Later, a reporter asks whether I would say that it is “normal” to be homosexual and whether human rights should extend to the homosexual population. I don my anthropological hat for the occasion and assure the well-meaning man that homosexuals are normal and deserving of full rights to social inclusion.
These are a few of the many private and public responses to an increasingly vocal and visible gay and lesbian presence that I have encountered in Nicaragua since 1989. As a foreign researcher and observer of the public emergence of an LGBT community and social movement since the Sandinistas lost the 1990 elections, I had expected to find some resistance to my participation in the charged discussion. What I have found, to my surprise, is a passion for debating the local, national and transnational aspects of gay culture and politics with as broad and international a group as possible.
To understand the current context, however, one needs to look back at the changes that have occurred over the last 25 years. The revolutionary Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) government (1979-1990) provided an opportunity for disenfranchised women and men to become players in the social drama transforming much of the country in the 1980s. Along with agrarian, health, education and legal reform, gender equality became part of the agenda. And the new constitution of 1987 included women’s rights under the rubric of protecting the family as the basic unit of society.
The inclusive vision of the Sandinistas did not extend, however, to a non-heteronormative conception of the Nicaraguan family and society. When lesbians and gay men began organizing in the second half of the 1980s, the Sandinistas were not prepared to extend their revolutionary vision to this new constituency by supporting their call for social recognition and civil rights. As in other socialist-oriented societies, homosexuality was regarded as part of the “decadent” bourgeois past, and it met a chilly response from party militants, despite the fact that well-regarded Sandinistas were among those quietly organizing in Managua. Although same-sex relations, particularly among men, were well known in urban Nicaragua, in 1987, FSLN security agents called in and detained a number of gay men and lesbians whose more political sexual identification was viewed as a deviation.
If the silencing of the nascent gay movement in Nicaragua was effective, this changed by 1989, when some 50 Nicaraguan gay rights activists and their international supporters marched openly to the Plaza de la Revolución for the tenth anniversary celebration of the Sandinista victory, capturing national and international attention. They wore black T-shirts with hand-painted pink triangles, symbolic of gay pride internationally. Although the FSLN initially clamped down on gay organizing, this public appearance of activists, who were both Sandinista and gay, marked the beginning of a more open and outspoken movement along with a more tolerant public reception.
The Sandinista loss in the 1990 election signaled the entry of a centrist government eager to reclaim U.S. support, peacetime relations and an end to the economic embargo. The consequent neoliberal climate favored the return of some Nicaraguans who had left the country during the years of revolutionary government. Among these were a number of gay “Miami boys” who established businesses that included gay-friendly bars and cultural venues. At the same time, Nicaraguan and internationalist activists began establishing NGOs to meet needs the state was no longer willing or able to address. Whereas the Sandinista Health Ministry was by the end of the 1980s promoting AIDS education and making condoms widely available, such proactive services became the providence of NGOs in the subsequent decade. Centers operated by lesbian and gay activists, often feminist in orientation, provided not only services but also a base for a gay community to form.
Not coincidentally, the NGOs were catalyzing agents for the first Gay Pride celebrations in the country. The year 1991 marked the separation of many feminists from the Nicaraguan Women’s Association (AMNLAE) and also the first public Gay Pride event. Several hundred people, both gay and straight, gathered at a popular cultural center for a film showing of the gay-themed Torch Song Trilogy followed by a panel discussion of homosexuality and human rights. The audience responded with passionate testimonies of experiences in family and society, endorsing a call for greater tolerance and understanding. In the years since then, Gay Pride has received more attention, with weeks of activities for its commemoration.
Lesbian and gay activism was galvanized the following year by the reactivation of a draconian sodomy law. The government of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro set out to regulate sexual behavior, sanctioning as “natural” and legal only those sexual practices related to procreation. The law criminalized sexual activity “between persons of the same sex” conducted in a “scandalous way.” More than 25 groups joined together to launch the Campaign for a Sexuality Free of Prejudice. Despite years of protest, however, the law remains on the books. Although it is rarely enforced, many believe that the law fuels continuing intolerance.
Throughout the 1990s, gay activism continued to find expression in small groups of individuals and in NGOs, health clinics and cultural venues. The Central American University offered its first course in sexuality studies, and gay bars and clubs offered space for same-sex individuals to socialize. The NGO Xochiquetzal began publishing the magazine Fuera del closet (Out of the Closet) in 1993, which offers a mix of poetry, art and informative articles. Women were often the ones putting a public face on lesbian and gay issues, notably when Mary Bolt González wrote the first book on gay identity in Nicaragua, Sencillamente diferentes (Simply Different), published in 1996, focusing on lesbian self-esteem.
Lesbians are certainly prominent in the organized activity of the fledgling movement, but they are far less in evidence in the social spaces that are by and large available to gay men in the larger society. This is not surprising given the continued separation of genders in la casa and la calle (home and street). The neoliberal turn has presented new opportunities for men, particularly those of the middle class, who have the economic means to enjoy gay bars and other venues. Women, in contrast, are scarce until Gay Pride brings together more diverse crowds for a host of events ranging from academic panels to readings of erotic poetry. Annual gatherings such as a contest to select the Goddess Xochiquetzal are intended to help democratize the social space, but a majority who compete are men in drag. The 2003 competition saw the first woman contestant to enter and win.
The former pastor of the Metropolitan Church, Armando, related to me places where gay men regularly meet in Managua, including bars, movie theaters, house parties and even the Metrocentro Mall, which he called “Metro Gay.” In contrast, he said lesbians have few places to meet and socialize, and he described their parties as fiestas de traje (potluck dinners). Lesbians themselves frequently cite their family responsibilities, including care of children, and lack of financial resources to enter what they perceive as male spaces. A number of those lesbians working in NGOs also have very full professional lives and close circles of friendship, but little available time to spare. As a result, there is occasional tension between gay men and lesbians over the women’s perceived dominance in NGOs and men’s perceived advantages as consumers under the new market conditions of globalization.
The transnationalization of lesbian and gay politics and culture is on display in Nicaragua. The adoption of the Gay Pride annual celebration on or around June 28 in honor of the 1969 Stonewall rebellion in New York City as practiced in the United States and other countries is one sign of global connection. Other material, ideological and linguistic markers also suggest Nicaraguans’ desire to affiliate with the international gay movement. Pink triangles, red ribbons, rainbows and the acronym LGBT—or LGBTT, which not only recognizes lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered individuals, but also transvestites—are all in evidence. The tropes of the “closet” and “coming out” are widespread now, as many lesbians and gay men seek greater public visibility.
In contrast to the past, when male same-sex partners were often described as “active” (penetrative) and “passive” (penetrated) with the latter category stigmatized, today the terms used to describe “gays” and “lesbians” are heard more frequently and in a more positive light. Also common is more open discussion of AIDS and human rights, as Nicaraguans participate actively in the global discourse surrounding these issues. On the cultural front, the popular television program, Sexto Sentido (Sixth Sense), brings a sympathetic gay character to viewers throughout the country. In all these ways, lesbian and gay issues have received growing public attention in recent years. Although not always favorable, this attention contributes to an increasing awareness of sexual diversity among the broader Nicaraguan population.
In a similar way to the women’s movement of a decade or two ago, the gay and lesbian movement today reveals how far some nations are willing to go in accommodating cultural difference and extending citizenship rights to all. In Nicaragua, the mass women’s movement produced a feminist leadership that became instrumental in charting the direction of lesbian and gay culture and politics. This has been one of the most striking aspects of the nascent movement—the degree to which women have assumed prominent roles through participation in NGOs and social activism. Indeed, to understand contemporary sexual politics in the country, it is crucial to consider women’s stake in the course of local and national change. Moreover, the association of Nicaraguan gay politics with transnational currents is most clearly apparent through the involvement of women, as well as men, in a host of projects across Central America and beyond.
During Gay Pride week in 2002, the lesbian-feminist leadership of Xochiquetzal called together 13 lesbians and 13 gay men for a day long meeting held in a lesbian-owned bar. They formed a Managua “cell” in hope of inspiring more cells to organize around the country, which could eventually coalesce into a national movement. Among the advances were agreements to endorse lesbian and gay rights, to support others to “come out” and to move cautiously toward forming alliances internationally. While the initiative to build a national lesbian and gay movement has yet to bear fruit, the event stimulated a good deal of productive discussion. The participants took the collective thinking of the group back to their various individual organizations and put it to practical use.
For now, lesbian and gay groups and NGOs often find that more is gained by creating and claiming ties with international counterparts and movements than by remaining focused at local or national levels. In the face of continued homophobia and internal political differences, identification and solidarity with international groups may be desirable. Furthermore, most organizations depend on international financial support, often from Europe, and funding agencies expect to find programs and services that mirror the activities of their own countries’ gay rights movement. As a result, competition over scarce funding is often fierce among feminist and gay organizations. Arguably, the competition for resources among NGOs and other groups substantially impedes the formation of stronger ties of solidarity at the national level. Even those who are the beneficiaries of such international support are often harsh critics of the consequences of the state relinquishing responsibility for many social projects now taken on by NGOs. As Nicaraguan feminist and left intellectual Sofía Montenegro put it, “NGOs are cheap for the state and good for capitalism, but the social movements have become NGO-ized.”
While globalization presents opportunities for individuals and social movements to expand sexual expression and sexual rights, neoliberalism has benefited some far more than others as sexual subjects and citizens, particularly men and cultural elites. Women and members of the popular classes in general have experienced diminished possibilities and greater hardship in the post-Sandinista years, even if they have also found new ways of organizing collectively.
The mass mobilization of the population brought about by the Nicaraguan Revolution provided an opportunity for young women and men to explore and redefine their sexuality. During their years in power, the Sandinistas began to provide a space for more open discussion of gender and sexual relations and of personal life and politics, though they were ambivalent about the new desires expressed as a result of those spaces. In the post-Sandinista neoliberal era, the FSLN leadership has faced its own crisis, signaling that there is much left unresolved in Nicaragua’s machista political culture. Thus it is all the more remarkable that lesbians and gay men in this small Central American nation have been at the forefront in charting a politics of sexuality in Latin America.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Florence E. Babb is professor of anthropology and women’s studies at the University of Iowa. She is the author of After Revolution: Mapping Gender and Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Nicaragua (University of Texas).
