Like many gay-pride marches
throughout the world, last
year’s Gay/Lesbian/Trans-
vestite/Transsexual Pride March in
Buenos Aires was held on June 28 to
commemorate the 1969 Stonewall
riots in New York City. Some 1,500
people, representing over 22 organi-
zations from diverse regions of the
country, were present-almost dou-
ble the number of participants in the
previous year’s march. In many
respects, this turnout was an expres-
sion of the growing political visibil-
ity of sexual minorities in
Argentina. While only a small num-
ber of gay-rights organizations
existed in Argentina-as in other
Latin American countries-just two
decades ago, today a broad range of
organizations have emerged,
reflecting the diverse experiences,
types of oppression and political
activism of sexual minorities.
Many of the marchers in Buenos
Aires, fearful of the consequences
of “coming out,” wore masks or
partially covered their faces as they
marched through the downtown
streets of the capital city. The need
felt by many demonstrators to con-
ceal their identities highlights the
contradictions of becoming politi-
cally visible for sexual minorities in
Amy Lind teaches sociology and Latin
American Studies at Brown University.
Latin America. On one hand, the
demonstrators publicly manifested
their pride-and anger-as they
walked to the Congress from the
Plaza de Mayo, an important public
place for political expression in
Argentina. The marchers also
showed their growing discontent
with Argentine laws and institution-
al practices which legitimize police
brutality against gay men, lesbians,
transvestites, transsexuals and other
sexual minorities. It is precisely
because of this violence, however,
that many of those who protested in
the streets were cautious about pub-
licly revealing their identities.
Yet, while risks remain for gay
and lesbian activists who engage in
open protest, people are increasingly
willing to take them. Pride marches
have been organized in other coun-
tries, most notably in Mexico and
Brazil. And throughout Latin
America, gay and lesbian non-
governmental organizations (NGOs)
have played important roles in
launching educational campaigns
and in monitoring human rights
abuses against sexual minorities.
While many progressive groups
have supported this growing
activism of Latin America’s gay and
lesbian community, the increased
visibility has also triggered a back-
lash against gay-rights organiza-
tions. Police brutality has increased
Out
of the Closet
and Into
La Calle
6NACLA
REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
Violence against
sexs harassinor sexual mins on
the rise in Latin
America. While gay
and lesbian activists
who openly protest
this violence face
serious risks, they are
increasingly
wicampa ing to
the ake thoe risksable” sectors
over the past few years, as have
measures harassing sexual minori-
ties, such as raids of gay and lesbian
bars. Paramilitary groups have
become more visible in their self-
styled morality campaigns to “clean
the streets” of “disposable” sectors
of the population, including gays
and ile ll as transvestites,
transsexuals, male prostitutes, street
children and other social “undesir-
ables.” Systematic, accurate docu-
mentation in recent years by gay-
rights groups has highlighted the
scope of the problem-and has pro-
vided a basis for local organizations
to develop alliances with like-minded
organizations in their cities and in
other regions and countries.
O` nly a few countries, includ-
ing Nicaragua, Ecuador and
Chile, have laws which
criminalize homosexual practices.
In some cases, these laws have exist-
ed for decades, but in others, new
BY AMY LIND
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
6UPDATE / GAY RIGHTS
anti-gay laws or legal campaigns
have emerged. In Nicaragua, for
example, the conservative govern-
ment of Violeta Chamorro passed an
“public morality” are being applied
with renewed vigor against sexual
minorities. For example, police in
Peru have used laws against prosti-
Activists march at a parade for International AIDS Day in Mexico City in 1993. The
banner reads, “Homosexuals United. ”
anti-sodomy law in 1992 which
mandates prison sentences of up to
three years for “anyone who
induces, promotes, propagandizes or
practices in scandalous form sexual
intercourse between persons of the
same sex.” Such legislation serves
as “a constant threat,” according to a
recent report by the Inter-Church
Committee on Human Rights in
Latin America, “allowing the police
to intimidate, abuse and extort les-
bians, gays and transvestites.” And
in Guadalajara, Mexico, although no
national law criminalizes homosex-
uality, the governing right-wing
National Action Party (PAN) passed
a local ordinance last December
which outlaws “abnormal sexual
behavior.” The origins of the ordi-
nance date back several decades, but
this new version has received public
attention because it renews the legal
power of the local police to arrest
homosexuals, and it makes extra-
legal police practices like extortion
more likely to occur.
Elsewhere in Latin America,
existing laws designed to uphold
tution to arrest transvestites and
male sex workers. Last January,
under the guise of a campaign to
crack down on prostitution known
as “Operation Thunder,” Peruvian
police detained over 300 people in a
series of raids on gay nightclubs.
A similar wave of police raids of
gay and lesbian bars and nightclubs
threatened Argentine sexual minori-
ties in 1995 and 1996. While no law
in Argentina specifically criminalizes
homosexuality, the police have
resorted to a number of other legal
instruments to harass individuals
they consider “dangerous.” For
example, police edicts, which are
not laws as such, but regulations set
in place nearly 50 years ago and
applied at the discretion of the
Argentine police, have been used
extensively to harass sexual minori-
ties. The “Edict Against Public
Scandals,” which punishes those
“who disturb with flirtatious
remarks” and prohibits “public exhi-
bition of persons wearing or dis-
guised with clothes of the opposite
gender,” has been used to arrest gay
men, lesbians and transvestites. The
“Edict Against Public Dancing”
punishes any proprietor who
“allows men to dance together.”
Individuals arrested under these
edicts have been held by police for
up to 30 days and fined. The Buenos
Aires group, Gays for Civil Rights
(Gays D. C.), says that it document-
ed 331 complaints of arrest under
the edicts in 1995-twice the num-
ber of complaints documented over
the two-year period between
September, 1992 and September,
1994. More than 50 transvestites
and transsexuals were arrested every
night in Buenos Aires in 1995 and
the first half of 1996, according to
the International Gay and Lesbian
Human Rights Commission
(IGLHRC), a non-profit organization
based in San Francisco. In a single
sweep last February, 160 people
were arrested under the charges of
cross-dressing and prostitution.
More brutal forms of repression
against sexual minorities have also
risen alarmingly over the past few
years, especially in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
Paramilitary groups and “social
cleansing” death squads claim to be
taking justice into their own hands
by “disposing” of those viewed as
“dirtying” the social fabric of soci-
ety. In Brazil, the Gay Group of
Bahia (GGB) has documented more
than 1,200 cases of assassinations of
lesbians, gay men and transvestites
since 1982. The group says that at
least 12 anti-gay death squads oper-
ate in various parts of the country, including the “Group for Hunting
Homosexuals” in Bel6m do Pard
and a neo-nazi skinhead group in
Sao Paulo whose members wear
t-shirts saying “Death to Homo-
sexuals.” And in Colombia, 39
groups have engaged in “social
cleansing” activities, according to
activist Juan Pablo Ordofiez, includ-
ing the groups, “Death to Dangerous
Homosexuals” and “Death to
Homosexuals.”
Vol )(XX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 7
a s
a z a
a w
Vol XXX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 7UPDATE / GAY RIGHTS
The common denominator of the
so-called “disposables” is, according
to Ordofiez, their poverty. In this
sense, the problem of human rights
abuses against sexual minorities is
directly related to issues of class and
race. More often than not, it is
homosexuals, prostitutes or trans-
vestites who are poor or members of
racial or ethnic minorities that are
targeted and who suffer the most
brutal forms of violence and dis-
crimination. Death-squad activities
occur in the context of a more gen-
eral hatred and fear of any group
deemed an “other” by the dominant
society. Left-wing insurgent groups
supposedly fighting for social jus-
tice have also adopted the dominant
society’s hatred of sexual minorities.
The Tipac Amaru Revolutionary
Movement (MRTA), which was con-
sidered defunct in Peru until last
December’s hostage-taking at the
Japanese ambassador’s residence,
killed at least three gay men in
Pucallpa and Tarapoto in 1990, saying
homosexuals are “products of capi-
talism” and “anti-revolutionary.”
The oppression of sexual minori-
ties is closely linked to other forms
of class, race, ethnic and gender
oppression. Indeed, upper-class gay
men and lesbians, who often enjoy
the protection that their social status
bestows, are less likely to be the tar-
get of such violence. Although
homosexuality was by no means
condoned during the military rule of
Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile,
upper-class gay men’s clubs that
aligned themselves ideologically
with the dictatorship were relative-
ly unaffected by the military cur-
fews that regulated the daily lives of
most Chileans. Such protection is
not always assured, however, as
recent events in Peru suggest.
Shortly after announcing his “self-
coup” in April, 1992, in which he
closed Congress and suspended the
Constitution, President Alberto
Fujimori announced a restructuring
of the foreign service, arguing that
the Peruvian government was threat-
ened by corruption and political dis-
sent from within. Fujimori referred
to homosexuality as one form of
“subversion” which the state needed
to eliminate, and several gay mem-
bers of the foreign service were
expelled from their long-held jobs.
Legal and extra-legal practices
which deny the human rights of sex-
ual minorities-including the basic
right to life-are often premised on
the notion that homosexuals are a
“danger” to society. Because homo-
sexuality is perceived as a threat to
what is considered the foundation of
nation-building-the family-it is
seen as a threat to “preserving the
nation.” Such notions of the family
as the basic building block of soci-
ety, to be preserved at all cost, are at
the root of many military and for-
mal democratic government pro-
jects, as well as what social critic
Jean Franco has referred to as the
“gender wars” launched by the
Catholic Church in recent years.
Similarly, the traditional left has
often criticized both women’s and
gay-rights movements for “divid-
ing” the family and, therefore, the
revolutionary movement.
n important strategy of
activist groups has been to
challenge age-old stereo-
types about homosexuality and sex-
ual difference as these stereotypes
become the bases for laws and
repressive political practices.
Pointing out how the state and legal
system seek to control the seemingly
most natural, intimate, private
aspects of people’s lives provides a
powerful critique of the traditional
view that the family is a nonpoliti-
cal, purely private institution.
Sexual minorities have attempted
to carve out alternative political
spaces which challenge these
moralistic premises of both the right
and the left. Obviously, many of the
gay-rights groups in existence today
have their roots in the human rights
and anti-authoritarian struggles of
the 1970s and 1980s, as well as in
the burgeoning women’s move-
ment, the organized left and other
popular struggles. But because
Latin American societies have so
thoroughly stigmatized homosexu-
als as “sexually deviant,” they and
other sexual minorities have felt the
need to develop their own organiza-
tions.
A protester at the gay-pride march in Mexico City last year
This has led some gay activists to
abandon the left, partly because of
their past experiences of being mar-
ginalized within leftist political par-
ties and organizations. Many of
these activists have been key to the
formation of autonomous networks
of NGOs defending and promoting
gay rights. The Homosexual
Movement of Lima (MHOL), for
example, which was founded in
1983, has become an important
institution representing the rights of
gays and lesbians in Peru. It has
played a crucial role in monitoring
human rights abuses against sexual
minorities and in providing support
for sexual minorities and for people
living with HIV/AIDS.
Some gay activists have neverthe-
less continued to work in the loosely
defined left while struggling for gay
rights. In Nicaragua and Brazil, for
example, gay-rights groups have
successfully gained the support of
8NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 8UPDATE / GAY RIGHTS
conventional leftist parties for spe-
cific initiatives. The Sandinistas, for
example, supported Nicaragua’s
gay-rights groups in opposing
Chamorro’s anti-sodomy law, which
they saw as unconstitutional. The
Workers’ Party (PT) has also chal-
lenged anti-gay legislation in Brazil.
What has emerged through this
historical process is a variety of new
human rights and political agendas.
Increasingly, local groups are par-
ticipating in regional and interna-
tional networks and conferences,
thereby developing a more adequate
network to respond to processes of
violence as well as overcoming
some of the isolation felt in the act
of local organizing. Funding for
human rights and HIV/AIDS-related
projects for gay and lesbian NGOs
has contributed to this institutional
strengthening, as has the sheer ded-
ication of activists to build local
coalitions and transnational net-
works. While much needs to be
done to build trust among organiza-
tions and to develop more effective,
shared agendas, recent trends point
in the right direction. In response to
the dramatic rise in murders of male
prostitutes and transvestites in
Ecuador, for example, gay activists
have sought to make links between
prostitution laws and violence
against gays and lesbians. Other
groups have also sought to end the
marginalization of transvestites and
transsexuals in the broader struggle
of sexual minorities, as in
Argentina’s pride march.
Many activist groups have also
begun addressing complex ques-
tions of homophobia in relation to
broader processes of violence and
discrimination in Latin American
societies. In practice, however, this
is not an easy task. Much has yet to
be done to further enable communi-
cation among individual organiza-
tions and, most importantly, to
work towards creating social
spaces in which homophobic atti-
tudes and oppressive legal and
political structures can be trans-
formed. Some hopeful signs have
emerged recently. Activist protests
in Argentina helped get the police
edicts repealed this past August,
ending a wave of repression against
sexual minorities. An antidiscrimi-
nation clause was also introduced
in the city’s legislation, making
Buenos Aires the first Latin
American city with legislation for-
bidding discrimination on the basis
of sexual orientation. In Chile, it is
likely that the Senate will approve a
liberalization of the Sodomy Law
so that it applies only to persons
under the age of 18, despite a
Senate committee recommendation
to uphold the law. Local activists
would not consider this a total vic-
tory, since it would constitute an
age of consent for homosexuals
that is higher than that permitted for
heterosexual relations, but they still
see it as a step forward because it
would decriminalize sodomy for
adults.
Regional and international net-
works have been formed as well,
thus creating a stronger institution-
al base for activists to document
abuses and challenge specific legis-
lation and processes of violence.
Many organizations throughout the
region are now members of the
International Lesbian and Gay
Association (ILGA), the first inter-
national gay-rights organization to
gain consultative status with the
UN. ILGA activists have worked
closely with Amnesty International,
IGLHRC and several regional orga-
nizations to introduce sexual orien-
tation into the UN human rights
frameworks. ILGA, which started
out as an umbrella organization of
gay and lesbian organizations in
Europe, now has a membership of
over 300 organizations from over
70 countries, and has encouraged
members from Latin America,
Africa and Asia to assume leader-
ship positions within the organiza-
tion. Peruvian activist Rebeca
Sevilla, former director of MHOL,
was ILGA’s co-secretary general
between 1992 and 1995.
More than ever before, Latin
American gay and lesbian organiza-
tions are acting simultaneously on
several levels-locally, regionally
and internationally-to bring the
rights of sexual minorities to the
forefront and to place pressure on
national governments to reform dis-
The Gay Group of Bahia
says over 1,200 lesbians,
gay men and
transvestites have been
killed since 1982 in
Brazil by death squads
like the “Group for
Hunting Homosexuals.”
criminatory state policies and laws.
This was evident in the strong pres-
ence of regional activists at the
1994 UN Human Rights conference
in Vienna and the 1995 UN
Women’s Conference in Beijing.
And it is evident in the growing
presence of organizations like the
Mexican lesbian-rights group called
the Closet of Sor Juana, which has
played a major role in pushing for
antidiscriminatory legislation and in
including sexual minorities in
human rights agendas at local and
international levels. Increasingly,
people are willing to take the risk of
“coming out.” While violence and
homophobia persist, the public
decision-making arena is sure to be
transformed by the presence of gay
and lesbian organizations which
have emerged from the closet to
challenge homophobia and tradi-
tional moralistic views of sexual
identity.
Menu
