This past weekend several of Chile's leading LGBT-rights organizations held a "unity" march in observation of the International Day Against Homophobia
and Transphobia which, by some estimates, drew as many as 50,000 people.
The country recently elected president Michelle Bachelet on a platform that includes debating marriage equality although she has since put it on the back burner saying that the debate won't happen until at least next year.
The country has also seen a series of vicious anti-gay attacks and murders in the last few years including Daniel Zamudio who was beaten to death in 2012 and whose aggressors carved swastikas on his body using broken beer bottles
Sometime during Sunday night or Monday before dawn someone
spray-painted a number of hateful messages outside the offices of the MOVILH, one of the leading LGBT-rights organizations in the country. The messages read: "Death to faggots", "AIDS-ridden faggots", "Put your marches up your
ass, fucked faggots", "More AIDS, less fags" and "Do me a favor AIDS,
and kill more faggots".
There has been an outpouring of support for
MOVILH and international condemnation for the attack. The United Nation's Office of the High Commissioner released a statement in Spanish through it's South American Regional Office which they call on the state to investigate the crime and hold those who did it accountable. The Chilean government under Bachelet has also responded quickly sending a spokesperson to the site of the attacks to express strong support for MOVILH and a commitment to address the crime.
If you would like to express support for MOVILH, please
take a couple of minutes and drop a line or two on their facebook page: Movilh Chile.
Another one of the many sublime tracks from Chilean singer Alex Anwandter's 2011 album "Rebeldes" has finally gotten a video treatment.
The lyrics for "Tormenta" ["Storm"] tells of a lover who sees the end of a romantic relationship coming and wonders whether his partner is aware their relationship is all but over.
This is a storm
This is the end of our confusion
The rare occasion
I wanna know if you see
Each action I take for you...
I wanna know if you see and feel
What is about to hit us
The video is something different. It shows a number of couples of all sexual persuasions lustfully making out while Anwandter sings alone from a boat in the middle of a lake (the video has been tagged as NSFW although you probably can see more sexually explicit material on any of MTV's reality shows).
It's beautifully shot but it doesn't quite capture the delicate mood and heartbreak of the lyrics.
It's also a curious release as Anwandter and fellow Chilean singer Gepe just released a joint project under the monicker Alex & Daniel last month titled, appropriately, "Alex & Daniel".
Still, Anwandter just finished a solo mini-tour that took him to several cities in Mexico and Los Angeles and is expected to hit other cities in the United States later this year delving into his back catalog and recent work with Gepe. He is an electrifying performer so check his website for updates and see him if he visits your city.
Photo: Alex Anwandter by Rocío Aguirre (posted by permission)
The amazing album "Rebeldes" by Alex Anwandter can be purchased on iTunes here
Original version and remixes of "¿Como puedes vivir contigo mismo?" can be downloaded for free after you join his record lablel's mailing list here
Follow Alex Anwandter on Twitter here
Follow Alex on Facebook here
When a young gay man named Daniel Zamudio was brutally attacked for being gay in Chile in March of this year and later died from the injuries he sustained, the outrage his murder elicited throughout Latin America was something I had never seen. The closest thing to it was the way thousands of people reacted and went out to the streets after a similarly brutal attack against a young gay man in 1998 named Matthew Sheppard. Similarly, when Zamudio was mourned in a public burial on March 30th, thousands of people took to the streets of Santiago carrying rainbow flags and demanding justice.
Word of the vicious attack traveled mostly through social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter and one of the phenomenons I still remember was the number of music artists who helped to spread the word.
Ricky Martin got the ball rolling on March 25th when he took to his Twitter account to dedicate an award he had gotten from GLAAD to Zamudio as Zamudio still laid on a hospital bed. Two days later, upon finding out Zamudio had passed away he simply wrote "Daniel Zamudio RIP" and sent it to the more than five million accounts that followed him at the time.
For Anwandter in particular Zamudio's murder hit close to home. Zamudio's parents revealed to media that Anwandter was Daniel's favorite singer and the singer himself said that he remembered online conversations he had with Daniel. Performing at Lollapalooza Chile a week after Zamudio's death, Anwandter stunned the crowd by dedicating two songs at the end of the set to Daniel and introducing them with the following speech:
Midway through last year a guy very much like many of you sent me a very nice video. I spoke to him through online chats a few times, just a really great guy. This year he was accosted at a park, they broke his legs, they extinguished cigarettes on him, they marked his stomach with swastikas. He was Daniel Zamudio.
Of course, this topic is incredibly relevant today. Let's hope we don't just leave it as some anecdote about what his favorite song was. Or a sense of revenge against the criminals who will be eventually judged. I just ask that we rise above and try to change something that is much greater and general about ourselves and our day to day lives.
We laugh at jokes about men with men and women with women, homophobic jokes on television, when we say fleto or we say maricón, so let's stop discriminating each other so that something like this will never happen again.
I wasn't sure I was going to bring this up. I wanted to write about the exceptional talent that Alex Anwandter is and his upcoming performances in Brooklyn and didn't want the Zamudio story to overshadow what might be an introduction to his work for many who stumble upon this post but ultimately felt that I would give additional context.
He'll be in New York as part of the annual Latin Alternative Music Conference and introduce his great new album "Rebeldes" to the U.S. market. It is currently available on iTunes for $7.99.
I was lucky to be able to send him a few questions on the eve of his NYC debut and get some thoughtful responses.
"Casa Latina / Latin House" - Alex Anwandter under the odiSEA moniker
Blabbeando: People in the United States love stories of artists who emerge from nowhere and become an overnight sensation. Obviously you have a long trajectory having recorded with different bands and under different names including Teleradio Donoso, Fother Muckers, and odiSEA. Now you arrive in New York under your own name, Alex Anwandter, with a striking sound that makes people take notice at first listen. How do you feel at this moment in your career? What are your hopes when you peform in New York?
Alex Anwandter:I'm really looking forward to it. Chile's so far away, so I feel I'm being invited to play with the big boys. I feel like the rookie who's gonna dazzle... hopefully!
Blabbeando: "Rebeldes" was released in Chile on October of 2011 and is only now being released in the United States. Are these the only planned performances in the United States or are there plans for a formal tour? And if that's the case will you still be promoting this material or are there ideas for a follow up?
Alex Anwandter:My idea is to come back before the end of year and do a somewhat more extensive tour. I'm always planning ahead though and am already working on two new records.
Blabbeando:In your production notes you say the video for your new single "¿Como puedes vivir contigo mismo?" is meant to be a homage to the seminal 1990 Jennie Livingston documentary "Paris Is Burning". How did that idea emerge?
"¿Como puedes vivir contigo mismo? / How can you live with yourself?" from the album "Rebeldes"
Alex Anwandter: I saw Livingston's documentary sometime ago and thought it was beautiful. People, women and men being themselves, beautiful and fun. At the same time, their backgrounds were very marginal. The sound of "¿Como puedes vivir contigo mismo?" is influenced mainly by Chicago House and 90's Euro-dance-ish house so I did relate it to the documentary and its soundtrack. But I also thought a tribute to the Livingston film would also allow me to further introduce something that practically doesn't yet exist in my country: Strong role models or icons that represent sexual diversity in mainstream media or pop culture.
In a way, I wasn't doing a tribute to the documentary in itself but rather to the original impact I believe it had back in the day: The validation of the lives of people who were being marginalized or discriminated against.
In other words, to date we still do not have a "Paris Is Burning" of our own and in that sense we are far behind. But I felt I could do something positive by producing this video and showing similar scenes to a country that doesn't have access to these type of images and still create a tribute to its artistic merit. The recent hate-motivated torture and murder of a gay kid shows there is a tremendous need to accept our diversity.
Also, Jennie Livingston said she loved the video, which was very reassuring to me.
Blabbeando: Speaking of a queer underground life, you allude to the violent murder of Daniel Zamudio at the hands of a few young gang members. And when it comes to Latin America, I have never seen a nation react in the way that Chileans repudiated his murder. Modern Chile, at least in my mind, continues to be a very conservative country but I cannot help but think that Daniel's murder created a tectonic shift in Chilean society, a great earthquake. And I know that his death moved you deeply because you had some contact with him as one of your fans. On a personal level, how do you perceive the before and after in terms of Chilean society and what were your thoughts after dedicating him two of your songs at Lollapalooza?
"Como Una Estrella / Like A Star" from "Rebeldes'. Allegedly Daniel Zamudio's favorite song.
Alex Anwandter: Unfortunately, Daniel became both a milestone and a martyr. It is really very sad that someone has to die, specially a kid that his whole life ahead of him, to make a country move forward on these issues.
I realize there has to be a long process of cultural change that might even last decades. To go from a society that widely embraces a homophobic and discriminatory sense of humor where effeminate hair-dresser sketches still dominate popular 'comic' shows to one that will respect equal rights will probably take some time.
I guess we are moving forward and that's something that should be appreciated but, at the same time - and we found out in the worst possible way - it's something that you cannot take your eye off for even a second or else someone might die.
On a more personal note, his death was very shocking to me because I knew him and also because I kept thinking it could have been a friend of mine or anyone who was dear to me. It was also incredibly intense to me when his brothers told me how much my music had meant to him and how they played my songs to him while he was dying and urged me to keep on speaking on behalf of people like Daniel. It's something that in a really tragic way makes me think that my job actually matters and that I should never stop fighting again discrimination.
Alex Anwandter: Not really! I think he's a great artist and he did a very beautiful thing opening up like that. I like him more now because he did something that he himself found very hard to do and wrote a beautiful letter about it. I don't care that he "came out" or is gay or bisexual. He can fall in love with anyone and he'll still be amazing.
End note: And that, as they say, is the end. I truly appreciate Alex taking some time to answer these questions and leave you with one last video from the first single of his current album.
Photo: Members of the US Embassy in Panama participate in the annual Sexual Diversity March that took place in Panama City on May 25th of 2012 (From the Embassy's flickr photo account).
[NOTE: Updated on July 18th, 2012. Latest updates at the bottom of this post]
It would be hard to overstate just how amazingly LGBT-friendly the US State Department has been under the leadership of Hillary Clinton even as she prepares to depart later this year.
I first took note of the changes at hand in January of 2011 when the U.S. Ambassador to Honduras took the highly unusual step to publicly put pressure on the Honduran government to investigate an increasing number of attacks and murders committed against dozens of transgender women throughout the nation. That was soon followed by a Statement by President Barack Obama himself and offers from the State Department to provide intelligence and legal assistance. It all culminated with Honduran authorities grudgingly announcing that they had launched a special hate crimes unit in November of that year.
Then came that extraordinary speech Secretary Clinton gave before the United Nations human rights office in Geneva in which she most memorably proclaimed 'gay rights are human rights' and made commitments to fight discrimination against members of the LGBT community throughout the world.
That essay was published on June 2011 during pride month following directions from the State Department for embassies to be visible on LGBT human rights issues on a local level.
This year in her pride month remarks, Secretary Clinton made it a point to highlight the diplomatic work being done by US Embassies and Missions throughout the world on LGBT issues:
United States Embassies
and Missions throughout the world are working to defend the rights of
LGBT people of all races, religions, and nationalities as part of our
comprehensive human rights policy and as a priority of our foreign
policy. From Riga, where two U.S. Ambassadors and a Deputy Assistant
Secretary marched in solidarity with Baltic Pride; to Nassau, where the
Embassy joined together with civil society to screen a film about LGBT
issues in Caribbean societies; to Albania, where our Embassy is
coordinating the first-ever regional Pride conference for diplomats and
activists to discuss human rights and shared experiences. And through
the Global Equality Fund that I launched last December, we have
strengthened our support for civil society and programs to protect and
promote human rights.
With such strong public commitment from the State Department and Hillary Clinton it is no surprise Ambassador Aponte felt in her right and duty to be visible on the issue last year.
This year a number of US Embassies throughout Latin America felt the same way.
HONDURAS: On June 20th, US Ambassador to Honduras Lisa Kubiske tweeted "The US Government supports the Honduran LGBT community in their fight for equality and respect #humanrights #LGBTpride" on her Twitter account (she also sent the message in Spanish).
Critics of US support for Honduran president Porfirio Lobo Sósa quickly jumped on the comment and asked if US police and military funding to Honduras would be conditioned on ending killings against members of the LGBT community to which she indirectly replied "Many Honduran #LGBT have repeatedly told me how much they appreciate USG support of SVU which has arrested 12 ppl connected to LGBT murders."
It turns out that on the same day Ambassador Kubiske sent those tweets she was holding a public LGBT pride month event in which she reiterated some of the warnings her predecessor Hugo Llorens had given the Honduran government a year and a half earlier.
Honduras has serious issues towards the LGBT community because it does not respect their rights and for us that is a key issue. That's the reason why several officials from United States have come to Honduras to ascertain that investigations of these crimes are done in an effective and prompt manner... All vulnerable groups need protection and when crimes are committed against them they deserve an investigation and a proper judicial process.
We certainly acknowledge the advances made during the previous year but we have to keep in mind that the number of violent attacks against the LGBT community have continued to increase, unfortunately.
La Tribuna also noted Interim Director for the USAID office in Honduras Ken Seifert was a guest of honor "announced" he was gay and read excerpts from his published novel "The Rising Storm".
On the Embassy's online site, Ambassador Andrew also highlighted the 2008 wedding of Cynthia Wang to an unnamed female partner and runs an essay from Ms. Wang on the meaning of LGBT pride.
Ms. Wang is the current Vice Consul in the American Citizen Services section of US Embassy in Costa Rica.
An excerpt from her essay:
Since we moved to Costa Rica my wife and I have felt extraordinarily well received. Some of our most intimate friends are ticos [ed. - a diminutive term for Costa Rican]. We feel a deep love and respect for this country and its culture and at a moment in time in which Costa Rica is debating LGBT rights let us hope that tolerance, compassion and a commitment to protecting human rights - a Costa Rican tradition - will also be reflected in public policies. Here is hoping that the Costa Rican government and its civil society extends protections to all citizens, whether they be gay or heterosexual.
Two days before the breakfast roundtable Ambassador Andrews also posted the following video on YouTube under the Embassy's account...
CHILE: My friend Michael K. Lavers covered it for The Washington Blade just so I wouldn't have to and thus:
Jason Jeffreys of the U.S. embassy in Santiago spoke at the Gay
Liberation and Integration Movement’s annual Equality and Human Rights
for Sexual Diversity March. Jacqueline Vera, whose son Daniel Zamudio
was brutally beaten to death in a downtown Santiago park in March,
Education Minister Harold Beyer, a number of presidential candidates and
lawmakers and Jon Benjamin, the United Kingdom’s ambassador to Chile,
were among those who also participated.
“As the Human Rights Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, one of a
number of policy objectives that Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton
has determined is the concept of equal protections for all, including
the international LGBT community,” Jeffreys told the Blade. “I wanted to
participate because I wanted to share with Chile the fact that the
[U.S. government] stands with them in this regard.”
Jeffreys, whose boyfriend is Chilean, added that Zamudio’s death
affected him personally. He attended candle light vigils and marches and
spoke with Chilean politicians about what he described as the
importance of anti-discrimination laws. Jeffreys also delivered a letter
on behalf of the U.S. ambassador to Chile, Alejandro Wolff, to
Zamudio’s family at his funeral.
“I jumped at the chance to be able to speak at this event to continue with this support,” he noted.
Chilean lawmakers in April passed an LGBT-inclusive hate crimes and
anti-discrimination bill that had languished for seven years. President
Sebastián Piñera and other leading politicians backed the measure in the
wake of Zamudio’s death.
Apparently that is a grande latte cup in his hand. Are there Starbucks in Chile? Oh, and he only spoke in English according to the Embassy's website. ¡Inglés sin barreras!
Earlier in June, the Embassy also posted a podcast conversation with Julio Dantas, coordinator of Todo Mejora (the Chilean version of the It Gets Better Project) and Fulbright scholar Jenn Lerner who, according to the site, is conducting research on gay life in Chile.
PANAMA: If I hadn't asked my friend Augutín Clement, I probably would have missed this one. It turns out that on June 25th the US Embassy in Panama actually sent a contingent to participate in Panama City's annual pride march.
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have asked embassies throughout the world to promote and defend all human rights. Members of the US Embassy and their families participated in the Gay Pride March in Panama to celebrate diversity, promote tolerance and support the fight against HIV/AIDS. This was the US Embassy's first official participation in support of this initiative in Panama.
"The US Embassy rocked," says Augustín, "They had shirts that said 'Estamos Unidos' ['We Are United'] and as they went by people shouted 'Long live, Obama! Long live equality!' It was truly moving."
That's a photo of Agustín, his hubby César Pereira and Duty Chief of Mission John Law as featured on the embassy's flickr account.
Johnathan D. Farrar, the current US Ambassador to Panama, did not join the contingent but he did invite Augustín to the embassy's July 4th celebration in honor of his advocacy for LGBT rights in Panama.
ECUADOR: A number of embassies not
mentioned in this post did not necessarily actively participate in
local pride events or held pride events of their own but added pride
proclamations from Obama and Clinton on their websites as was the case with the US Embassy in Ecuador. Unlike those other unmentioned countries, they also went a step further.
On June 22nd, the embassy also released a statement by Ambassador Adam E. Namm in which he applauded Obama and Clinton for their pride month declarations and highlighted the embassy's role as one of several "co-sponsors of the GLBTI Pride Week activities in Quito" (others include UNAIDS and several local and national government agencies).
Interestingly, while it didn't receive as much media attention as Mari Carmen Aponte, Ambassador Namm was also among a number of Obama diplomatic appointees whose confirmation was blocked by Senate Republicans for months on end. The lynchpin was Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio who also had a large role in keeping Aponte's appointment in check until it became politically unsustainable for him to continue voting against their confirmation.
Ambassador Samm started serving in his current diplomatic position on May 31st, a year after the seat had been vacated.
EL SALVADOR: Finally, while Ambassador Aponte returned to El Salvador on June 30th and a bit late to celebrate LGBT pride, it was particularly gratifying to see her receive such a warm welcome despite claims from certain US Senators that she was not welcome there.
It is also particularly satisfying to see some of the most homophobic conservative religious elements in El Salvador and the United States recoil in frustration. I won't translate this piece but will leave a link here for posterity.
Thank you, Madam Secretary Hillary Clinton.
--- UPDATES ---
MEXICO: On July 12th the US Embassy in Mexico invited a number of guests to the embassy and presented their entry into the "It Gets Better" project. The video went live on YouTube on July 16th.
The US Embassy in Mexico has supported members of the LGBT community. In this video we have included representation from the art, business and government worlds (including members of our Embassy). All have come together to give an anti-bullying message to be shared with the It Gets Better Project.
And on the embassy's blog they host a post by my friend Enrique Torre Molina about the video's launch which includes a cute photo of Enrique hanging out with Gabriel Gutierrez Garcia and other friends at the event ("The Embassy Gets Better" - Spanish).
SPAIN (not part of Latin America, of course, but part of Ibero-America): On July 17th, 2012, the US Embassy in Spain held a historic first meeting with some of the top leaders of the LGBT movement in the country. They included Pedro Zerolo, Carla Antonelli, Augustín López, Raúl Garcia, Toni Poveda and Boti G. Rodrigo, the current president of the Spanish State LGTB Federation (FELGBT).
On their Facebook page, the embassy posted additional images and described the meeting as follows:
Ambassador Alan D. Solomont met with leaders of the LGBT community in Spain at his residence on July 17th. They had a conversation about the history of LGBT rights in Spain, their successes and their challenges during the last few years and on how the Embassy can continue supporting human rights. Participants showed enthusiasm for recent comments made by President Obama in favor of gay marriage in the United States and suggested steps the United States might take to support LGBT rights - particularly in countries were those communities suffer great persecution. Referring to comments made by Secretary Clinton in Geneva in December of 2011 that "gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights", the Ambassador expressed his wish that this roundtable would only be the beginning of closer relationship between the Embassy and LGBT groups in Spain.
Photo: "I am not allowed because I am gay" reads a flyer plastered on top of a poster that says "Thanks for donating blood". Image from a 2007 protest organized by the Argentinean Homosexual Community (CHA).
Chile: On May 23rd representatives from the Chilean Homosexual Integration and Liberation Movement (MOVILH) emerged from a meeting with the country's health minister, Jaime Mañalich, and announced that the government would stop enforcing a law banning gay men from donating blood. MOVILH had made a similar announcement in 2009 under a different presidential administration but nothing seemed to come from it.
Under current guidelines public and private clinics are required to ask potential donors about their sexual orientation and turn away men who have had sex with other men without protection. The new measure, which will take effect in July, would specifically prohibit clinics from asking the sexual orientation of prospective donors. This time, the government appears to mean what they say.
The risk of contamination depends on the behavioral risk and not on the donor population; hence, a heterosexual person who has multiple sexual relations with unknown persons without protection on a long term basis than a gay man with a long term partner who uses protection. The [clinic's] guidelines do not take this into account, which makes them worthless or inadequate. Furthermore, public policy should focus on selecting all donors based on high risk behaviors, instead of excluding donors based on who they choose to have sexual relations with.
Adding:
This Court has determined that individuals and state agencies should
stop perpetuating discrimination against the homosexual community in a
manner that sends a message of stigma as in the current case.
The Court also stated that using sexual orientation as criteria was unnecessary because all blood centers are required to test blood donations for HIV. A 1996 regulation still in the books bans anyone who has had "homosexual relations" in the past fifteen years from donating blood.
The Court ordered the Colombian health ministry to draft new regulations. No word on the health ministry's response so far.
Councilmember Maximiliano Ferraro's bill, introduced just this week, says "information will not be required from donors regarding their gender identity, personal or sexual life, or any other information that discriminated or violates a person's right to their privacy".
If it gains momentum and is passed, it would only apply to Buenos Aires.
In 2006, the Argentinean National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI) recommended the Argentinean blood donor ban be lifted and the Argentinean health ministry agreed to take a look at ways to lift the ban. But the process apparently has since stalled.
Photo: Jimena stands up for her transgender son Mitchell in a newly launched campaign urging passage of a progressive gender identity law in Chile (screen capture).
Transgender rights activists in Chile are taking a page from activists in Argentina in launching an effort to pass a comprehensive gender identity law along the lines of the one that just went into effect in the neighboring country.
The successful efforts in Argentina included a number of brilliant transgender rights ads that sought to change public perception about transgender individuals and highlight the discrimination they face on a daily basis (see this,this and this).
It has its own theme - "For the Dignity of Identity" - and its own webpage leydeidentidaddegenero.cl. They also want the campaign to be interactive and are urging transgender rights advocates and allies to join them and upload their own videos on YouTube answering a simple question: "Why do you want a gender identity law?" and tagging them with the title "Suma-T" (a play on the word 'súmate' which means 'join us').
You can check the first two submissions here and here.
In the United States, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has led efforts to push the government to adopt changes to the national census in ways that better reflect the nation's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities through its "Queer the Census" project.
A U.S. House of Representatives panel took up the issue back in March but it still seems like an uphill battle ("House panel hears about adding LGBT to census survey", The Bay Area Reporter, March 15, 2012). The idea is that with better data about who we are as a community, government will be able to provide better services.
It's a battle being fought in other parts of the American continent as well. This might not be a comprehensive listing but it's a sample of similar efforts taking place throughout Latin America.
Argentina: Passage of a federal marriage equality law in Argentina in 2010 forced the National Census to incorporate questions about same-sex partnership households.
Perhaps among the most progressive of census agencies in the world,
Argentina also allows transgender individuals to register with their
current gender and name even if it's not reflected in their birth
certificates or government ID's.
Colombia:
Although it has yet to adopt progressive LGBT policies when it comes to
the national census, in 2011 the Colombian government announced it would
survey prisoners as to whether they identified themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex.
Some LGBT advocates raised alarms about the potential for violence
should a person's sexual identity be exposed in a general prison setting
but the National Penitentiary and Jail Institute insisted the measure
would help them to safeguard the safety of every LGBTI person in the
system.
Venezuela: In 2010, the Venezuelan National Statistics Institute eliminated an
"error" message that appeared whenever a census participant tried to
register having a same-sex partner at the request of LGBT-rights organization Unión Afirmativa. It's one of the few positive developments when it comes to LGBT rights under the Hugo Chávez mandate but, officially, same-sex couples in Venezuela can register their partnership in the national census surveys.
Which brings us to Chile.
The Homosexual Liberation Movement (MOVILH) has worked closely with the current center-right Chilean government of Sebastian Piñera to improve the way the Chilean census reflects the reality of the LGBT community. Although not as progressive as the census changes in Bolivia and Argentina, in 2011 the Chilean government announced that it would survey the number of same-sex partnerships in the country.
Today, the MOVILH launched a national campaign urging same-sex couples to register as such in the 2012 census under the theme of "Acknowledge the other half of your orange" ("Tu media naranja" or "Your half orange" is a common term of endearment used in Latin America to refer to one's partner).
The campaign includes a stand alone interactive site and an amazing Census 2012 video which I have taken the liberty of translating.
Photo: Chilean judge Karen Atala was a panelist at the Global Arc of Justice conference hosted by the Williams Institute at the UCLA Law School campus in March of 2009 (Courtesy: Blabbeando).
It is a monumental ruling and xQsi Magazine has the full details. I have asked them for permission to cross-post it on Blabbeando and they have graciously said yes. Here is their full post:
Lesbian Mother Wins Human Rights Case against Chile
In a precedent setting decision, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday in favor of Chilean lesbian judge Karen Atala Riffo, saying that the Supreme Court of Chile’s 2004 ruling that separated the mother from her three daughters was in violation of her right to equality and non-discrimination as stipulated in the American Convention on Human Rights.
It is the first time the Court has ruled on a case of discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Additionally, the court affirmed that in regards to the right to equality and non-discrimination, “sexual orientation and gender identity are protected categories in the American Convention under the phrase ‘other social condition’ established in article 1.1 of the Convention.” and that no legal decisions — whether made by governmental authorities or not — can “diminish or restrict, in no way, a person’s rights because of their sexual orientation.”
The Court also found the Chilean State, through its Supreme Court ruling, “internationally responsible” of violating other principles found in the Convention, including the right to privacy, the protection of family, and the right of children to be heard.
In 2002, Karen separated from her then husband, Jaime López Allende. A custody battle ensued over their three daughters. In 2004, after two appellate courts ruling in Karen’s favor, the Supreme Court of Chile intervened and overturned the lower courts’ rulings, giving custody of their three children to her ex-husband, arguing that Karen had placed her interests above those of her daughters when she decided to live with another woman. In its ruling, the Court argued that allowing the children to stay with their mother would leave them in in a “situation of risk” and turn them into “objects of social discrimination.”
In its decision, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered the Republic of Chile to provide psychological or medical attention, free of charge, should the victims request it and to pay $60 thousand for damages and reimbursement of costs and expenses.
Furthermore, Chile must internationally recognize its responsibility for the acts in the case, publish the Court’s decision in print, on the web, and in official State communications, and continue to implement programs and trainings for regional and national public officials, especially officers of all ranks in Chile’s judiciary branch.
In response to the ruling, the Movement of Gay Integration and Liberation (MOVILH) celebrated.
“Here justice has been served against a brutal case of discrimination that Atala and her daughters faced, and thanks to [Atala's] persistent struggle, the rights of everyone can obtain better guarantees for respect in Chile,” said the organization via press release.
According to MOVILH, Chile's Ministry of Justice has said that the government will "promptly implement" the measures outlined in the court's ruling.
When sex advice columnist Dan Savage and his husband Terry Miller launched the "It Gets Better" project in 2010 I doubt they would have envisioned the tremendous impact the project would have.
Their goal was to reach bullied gay teens through YouTube and let them know others had gone through the same experiences and been able to survive.
The message, which has been criticized as simplistic by some, reverberated across the web and resulted in video contributions from hundreds of thousands of people including U.S. President Barack Obama.
As the initiative grew larger, Savage and Miller handed the reigns of the project to others leading to the launch of an official and trademarked website for the It Gets Better Project.
Trademark be damned, you might expect a project others throughout the world to emulate a project like this one and so they have.
Wikipedia currently lists similar copy-cat initiatives in Australia and Canada while the It Gets Better Project website lists official affiliates in Australia, Denmark and Sweden.
When it comes to Latin America, I am personally aware of Peru's Proyecto Todo Mejora which has engaged some of the leading Peruvian political and showbiz leaders on the subject of LGBT bullying including former Vice Presidential nominee Carlos Bruce and current Lima mayor Susana Villarán.
The Peruvian site mentions It Gets Better as an inspiration but there is no sign of collaboration or permission to use the trademark. It does have links to a local donation page and a merchandise shop.
So I was surprised today to see a new Todo Mejora initiative from Chile emerging as the official It Gets Better affiliate in Latin America (TodoMejora.org).
In a Spanish-language statement posted on the new Chilean site, U.S. project manager Seth Levy says he is grateful for Chile taking the lead on the project even as he admits knowing little about LGBT issues in Latin America.
A translation of his statement:
We are grateful to the Chilean team who has made TODO MEJORA a reality. We recognize the importance of working on the local scale in order to carry the message of our project. Reaching Chile and Latin America was a challenge because we are not experts on regional cultures, idioms, politics or other important items needed to coordinate a successful regional campaign. We are confident that TODO MEJORA will change the life of LGBT youth in Chile and throughout Latin America.
Personally I am among those who believe that the It Gets Better Project's positive impact trumps most of the criticism lobbed its way. I am also hopeful that the new Chilean initiative will engage bullied Spanish-speaking LGBT youth who might otherwise not receive encouraging messages about how they feel and who they are.
I do wish that the Chilean initiative wouldn't be categorized as the Latin American response to It Gets Better since Chilean culture is indeed regional. After all, the official It Gets Better site doesn't bunch up Denmark and Sweden as representing all of Europe and, similarly, Latin America is much more diverse than this effort is trying to represent.
On the eve of its launch, though, the project has been received enthusiastically (check the Twitter hashtag for #TodoMejora) and we do wish it much success.
Very much like this groundbreaking ad, I love the fact that, image-wise, the vibe is a positive one and not a gloomy one. The one reservation I have about it is that while one of the persons in the ad says that she does not want to be treated as if she has an illness, another woman calls being transgender a "condition". It probably stems from transgender women being told all their lives that their identity is a condition, specially in countries where you have to get diagnosed as such before being allowed gender-reassignment surgery.
Here is the full ad. Turn 'annotations' on for my on-screen translation:
[NOTE: The image used for this post is that of legendary queer poet and provocateur Pedro Lemebel, who alerted media to the news, not that of Marcia Alejandra]
Friends of Marcia Alejandra - the first woman in Latin America to undergo gender reassignment surgery to change her anatomical gender from male to female - say she has died from a stroke.
"With her departure, this country loses - perhaps - a part of its memory," said queer activist and friend Pedro Lemebel to Chilean newspaper La Nación,
"Marcia was never acknowledged as the great mold-breaker of her era", he added.
Marcia Alejandra, who made a living as a hairdresser, underwent gender-reassignment surgery in Chile back in March of 1973 (that's almost 40 years ago!).
A report published by Chilean newspaper La Cuarta in 2004 says that news of the historic surgery didn't reach the public until a year after it happened when some newspapers finally caught wind of it.
At the time, Marcia Alejandra bravely stood up to reporters and said she was "a man with the soul of a woman" (remember, this were the early 1970's in Latin America).
Dr. Antonio Salas Vieyra, who performed the surgery, went on to worldwide acclaim and I still see his name pop up from time to time in reference to Latin American LGBT history. He is currently the president of the Chilean Sexuality and Sexual Education Association.
Marcia Alejandra's name, by all accounts, has been mostly relegated to the sands of time, at least until now.
La Nación says that when they reached out to the leading Chilean LGBT rights organization, MOVILH, they didn't even recognize her name. Pablo Lemebel, speaking to the paper, blamed it on institutional transphobia on their part (Lemebel has been a long time critic of the organization).
Lemebel also penned an ode to Marcia Alejandra published by El Nortero on January 10th in which he tries to rescue her name for historical posterity and highlights what it might have meant for someone in the early 1970's to have the courage to go under gender-reassignment surgery.
Of course, to call someone the first person in Latin America to undergo gender-reassignment surgery is highly subjective. In the comments section of the La Nación article, someone argues that someone else in Chile might have been the first transsexual woman in the country. And maybe that's correct but, if it is, it wasn't anyone who went public then nor now.
Marcia Alejandra did go public, though, and did so at a time when it was absolutely heroic.
In the United States, Puerto Rican-born transgender idol Sylvia Rivera has always been held high on a pedestal when it comes to te origins of the current LGBT-rights movement and her role in the Stonewall riots of the late 1960's.
Please help me welcome Marcia Alejandra to the same pantheon as that of Sylvia Rivera's.
When it comes to the usage in Latin America of Spanish-language terms that most people would deem homophobic, I admit sometimes I am left feeling a bit flummoxed.
There is, for example, the song "Puto" by the legendary Mexican rock band Molotov. The literate translation of the title is "Faggot" and it has a quaint chorus that says "matarile al maricón" ("kill the fag").
But whenever I've called it a homophobic song I've gotten push-back from people who say that in the song's context "Puto" does not really refer to gays but, instead, to the powers that be. And, to be sincere, I partly get it. The band itself has said as much and, in the face of criticism, insists on playing it live during their tours. But even if "fag" can be contextualized to mean something else in a song, do their fans make the distinction?
These thoughts come to mind today in light of a new campaign launched today by the National Women Services Ministry of the Chilean government (SERNAM):
SAY WHAT? Yes, the Chilean government says a "fag" is he who mistreats a woman (official government announcement here).
Speaking to La Tercera, Carolina Schmidt Zaldivar, Director of SERNAM, explained:
[Domestic] violence is based on the abuse of power and a poor understanding of what true masculinity is. Does it make you more of a macho man to mistreat, beat up or denigrate a woman? The answer is clear: He who mistreats a woman is a lesser man... let's say things as they are.
I do think the Minister makes a relevant point which actually is also pertinent to the discussion about the Molotov song: The Mexican rock band and the Chilean government might argue that "maricón" and "puto" is in no way related to "fagness" but they both admit they use the homophobic terminology as a means to question a man's masculinity.
Here is what complicates things somewhat: The first man you see in the video is Chilean soccer referee Pablo Pozo who has previously denounced soccer fans calling him a fag at several games and directly challenged homophobia in one of the most homophobic sports in the world.
The second man is television personality and talk show host Jordi Castell who is one of the few openly gay personalities on Chilean television. They both say they decided to participate in the campaign as opponents of domestic violence.
With the SERNAM campaign things are left clear: Relatives and people you know who are gay aren't fags. The man who beats up his woman is.
MOVILH, really?
There are a couple of things that strike me as very wrong with this brief statement. MOVILH lets SERNAM use the word "faggot" in a campaign and backs it up. They also buy into the meme that 'fagness' can be used to denigrate a man's masculinity.
In addition, the campaign assumes all domestic violence in a heterosexual partnership comes from the man, which is not always the case.
One Chilean LGBT rights organization is not having any of it. Speaking tonight on Radio Bio Bio, Marcelo Aguilar of Acción Gay said the campaign was discriminatory and questioned whether the message would be received as intended.
Tonight we have an answer to that: The term "maricón" [fag] became the #1 trending topic on Twitter in South America tonight thanks to SERNAM.
I personally think it's an awful campaign, it elicits unintended consequences, and gives people license to use the word "maricón" as if it wasn't anything bad.
But what's your take? Does the shock value make men respond? Is the campaign homophobic? Please let us know.
If, like me, you have kept an eye on all things LGBT and Latin America during the past two decades, there are few iconic events that stand up when you think about discrimination.
Key among them was the tragic 1993 fire at "Divine", a gay bar in Santiago, Chile, which took the lives of 16 patrons and left another 29 people hurt (archive photo to the right taken the morning after the fire).
Now comes word, after 17 years, that the fire wasn't a homophobic crime after all.
In a report released last Friday and backed by the leading LGBT rights organization in Chile, the Movement for Homosexual Liberation (MOVILH), authorities named the bar's owners as the true culprits.
According to the report, a month before the fire, bar owners Nelson Arellano and Arturo Masafierro, were seen covering the walls and ceilings of the bar with materials that had been deemed not to meet the fire hazard standards of the day. They also lined up the walls with electrical cables, television sets and stereo speakers in a way that violated fire safety guidelines as well.
Carlos Hernández, a firefighter who had visited the bar on the eve of the fire and in its aftermath, told investigators that the owners had ignored previous fire violation warnings.
"Not only did [the fire escape] have a latch; it also had a chain and lock and, worse still, it opened from the outside in, which didn't allow for it to be opened on time and forced firefighters to tear it down," he said, "as a matter of fact, Arellano was told to correct that danger and he did not".
That according to El Mercurio, which also says the investigation of the case was shut down in 1994 only to be re-opened in 2003 at the bequest of MOVILH.
The report also indicates that, when it comes to crimes committed in Chile, there is a 10 year statute of limitation law in the books which means that the owners of the bar cannot be prosecuted for their actions back in the early 1990's. It most probably mean that they will not be held accountable for the 16 people who died at "Divine" on September 4, 1993.
As for "Divine", the tragic incident was certainly turned into legend. There even was a movie made about it...
Below, the full report released last Friday by Chilean authorities (it's only available in Spanish)...
As commercialized as Valentine's Day has become over the years, it also has become a prime opportunity for the LGBT community to make our lack of partnership rights visible whether it's in the United States or any other country that 'observes' the unofficial ode to lovers.
Definitely less massive but just as important were several demonstrations that took place yesterday throughout Latin America.
Peru: Meet Jonathan and Oscar (right), college students and members of the LGBTI Student Bloc of Lima. In what Blog de Lima calls the 2nd annual "Kisses against homophobia" street action, they joined other several gay and lesbian couples and tried to take over the main public space inside a popular Lima shopping mall.
The couples held hands and kissed as they made their way through the mall but ran into heavy security as they tried to congregate inside the mall's main gathering spot. Several couples embraced each other and kissed for the cameras once they left the building (thanks to leading Peruvian LGBT rights advocate Jorge Alberto Chávez Reyes for providing images and video).
Meanwhile, across town, members of the Peruvian TTLGB Network congregated at the "Love Park" in Lima's Miraflores district for a symbolic marriage ceremony between same-sex couples. The Network, which had participated in previous kiss-in actions, said that they wanted to highlight the lack of same-sex partnership rights in the country.
"Just as the laws have to change in Mexico and Argentina, making civil rights be available for everyone, that's what our community demands", said well-known lesbian attorney Susel Paredes, who participated in the ceremony and symbolically married her partner, as quoted by the EFE news service.
There are conflicting reports of how many couples participated in the symbolic marriage. EFE says there were five but Peruvian media says that there were four as well as a heterosexual couple who was there in support for same-sex partnership recognition but did not participate in the ceremony.
Argentina: I haven't seen any coverage yet, but on the eve of Valentine's Day, the leading network of organizations advocating for marriage equality in Argentina called for members of the LGBT community and allies to participate in the 2nd annual "Picnics for the Same Love". The Argentinian LGBT Federation, in collaboration with ElMismoAmor.org [off-line at this moment] were the leading organizers (source: AG Magazine).
Two Argentinean men became the first same-sex couple to marry in all of Latin America back in December after a court declared that it was discriminatory to deny them the right to marry but other gay couples wishing to marry are awaiting an expected Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of allowing gay couples to do so.
I do know that, as part of the Valentine's Day events, Argentinean advocates launched their YouTube video version of Lily Allen's "Fuck You":
Chile: Chile is further back on the path of recognizing marriage equality but that didn't keep members from the United Movement of Sexual Minorities (MUMS) to take to the capital's Army Plaza and demand the right to marry.
"Chile is a country in which not everyone is equal," said MUMS director Fernando Muñoz, "it's a country where the laws keep you out and put you on the margin specifically in the sense that there is no recognition of same-sex partners or of common-law partners in the law that recognizes partnerships, nor of those who might want to conform one."
Muñoz also said that if the current law specifically establishes that marriage is only allowed for procreation and implied that it was hypocritical to keep gays from marriage but allow straight couples who cannot procreate to marry even if the law said they don't qualify (source: Radio Cooperativa).
Mexico: As in Argentina, marriage equality is a red-hot topic in Mexico ever since the Mexico City legislature passed a bill allowing same-sex couples to marry in Mexico's capital city (the law goes into effect in March). The measure, which also explicitly would allow same-sex couples to adopt, has run into vehement opposition from right wing politicians and religious leaders - and will also be heading to the country's Supreme Court for review later in the year.
Yesterday's La Jornada reported that different LGBT rights organizations from Jalisco, Colima and Guanajuato marched down the streets of Guadalajara to demand equal partnership rights. The group, mostly made up of lesbian and gay members from different regional university student groups, carried signs and expressed a desire for having similar rights granted to gays and lesbians in Mexico City. The group gathered outside the University of Guadalajara and made their way to the city's main plaza where they staged a kiss-in as the shadow of the city's Metropolitan Cathedral fell on them.
Milenio describes the scene outside the Cathedral and gives a better sense of how massive the march was. They estimate the crowd at 350 and say that, in addition to the kiss-in, eleven gay and lesbian couples also participated in a symbolic wedding ceremony. They also report homophobic insults and obscenities being hurled at marchers even as organizers expressed relief that there were no outbursts of violence.
"We received many threats form many people who said they were not going to allow us to march, including many who said they would be waiting here at the Cathedral to prevent us carrying on with the event, but at the end, none of that came to be," said Karina Velasco Michel.
These weren't the only LGBT-rights demonstrations that took place yesterday in Mexico, nor in other cities throughout Latin America, but I wanted to give you a flavor of what went on.
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