GLBT Identity in Latin America: Challenges and Triumphs

1. Mujeres Creando ~ Bolivia “Love and honesty in our struggle”

2. Mujeres Creando ~ Bolivia Targeting neoliberals, macho leftists and ‘gender technocrats’

3. GLBT Identity in Latin America Pamela Hayes- Bohanan, MLS James Hayes-Bohanan, Ph.D. Safe College Coalition Latin American & Caribbean Studies GS 358: Geography of Latin America

4. Overview • Sexual identity in Latin America • Implications for GLBT persons • Legal status • Violence • Organizing

5. Caveats • As with any regional geography, we acknowledge a tension between defining formal regions and eschewing stereotypes • We are both Latin Americanists, but we have had less involvement with GLBT issues in Latin America than in the United States • Feel free to ask questions!

6. Sexual Identity in Latin America • Marianismo – hyperfemininity • Pure • Submissive to father, brother, and spouse • Lacks sexual desire • Mary or Malinche • Virgin or Whore • Machismo – hypervirility • Physical strength • Bold sexual advances toward women • Great sexual prowess • Self-confidence • Bravery • Public and private spaces • After Steven Bocchi

7. Implications for GLBT Persons • Duality of male homosexual activity • Lesbians as anathema – so unlikely as to be invisible • Importance of transexual appearance • Confusion among “gay,” “transvestite,” and “transgendered”

8. Legal Status • Banning of homosexual acts – some countries might overturn • Legal protections for homosexual persons • Police harassment • Civil partnership

9. Violence • Relation to machismo • Public and private space • Amor Bandido – Bruno Barreto

10. Violence in Guatemala • No law against homosexuality • No protection, either • Police detain on the basis of “scandalous behavior” • Authorities engage in rape, theft, beatings, and killings of homosexual people • In a generally violent society, homosexuality is used to dismiss or diminish acts of violence • Anthropologist Myrna Mack killed by death squad in 1990 • U.S. Nun Diana Ortiz kidnapped and tortured by army in 1989 • Guatemala City Bishop Juan Gerardi, murdered in 1998

11. Famous GLBT Latin Americans • Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz – (Mexico) nun, poet, mystic • Manuel Puig – Argentina • Reinaldo Arenas – Cuba • Gabriela Mistral – Chile • Héctor Bianciotti – Argentina • Daniel Torres – Puerto Rico • Luis Rafael Sánchez – Puerto Rico • Virgilio Piñera – Cuba • Fernando Vallejo – Colombia • Jamie Bayly - Peru

12. Organizing • No Stonewall in Latin America • Mexico • Argentina • Central America

13. Mexico • Movement roughly concurrent with Stonewall • Frente Homosexual de Acción Revolutionaria (gay) • Grupo Lambda de Liberación Homosexual (lesbian) • OIKABETH (both) – now defunct – saw lesbianism as a political (socialist) choice • First pride march 1978 • The 2002 Pride March had 30,000 participants • The June 21, 2003 march had 30 floats and 80,000 participants. Even a PAN candidate set up a booth.

14. Argentina • 1969: El Grupo Nuestro Mundo – formed by communist who had been ejected from the party – bombarded media with gay liberation message • 1971: Frente de Liberación Homosexual • 1976: Group dissolved after most FLH members exiled or killed during the Isabel Peron administration • 1983: Groups such as Comunidad Homosexual Argentina reemerge, following Dirty War • 1996: Constitution of Buenos Aires amended to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation

15. Central America Guatemala has no organizations, though gay-rights groups were formed in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and El Salvador during the 1980s. Belize has little violence against gays, but neither does it have an open gay-rights movement.

16. Current Organizing and News • Resource Center for the Americas: http://www.americas.org/