Mexico City.- Rainbow flags, freedom, demands for more rights and lots of glitter.
Different cities in Latin America, from Mexico to Chile, were filled with color and music this Saturday to celebrate one more year the traditional LGBTQ pride marches in which, in addition to partying, they demand more rights and an end to stigmatization and the violence that continues to affect this community, to a greater or lesser extent, in many countries in the region.
“This march is for pride, this march is for protest, this march is for celebration,” “Neither sick nor criminals,” shouted tens of thousands of people in Mexico City among floats, feathers, heels, striking dresses and symbolic flags. with the colors of the rainbow on banners and umbrellas that symbolize the diversity they are committed to.
The first pride march was held in New York in 1970 to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riot, a riot that began with a police raid on a Manhattan gay bar.
Almost a decade later, it began to be celebrated in Mexico City, considered the most progressive city in the country and whose celebration has been one of the largest in the region for years.
But this year it was Chile that was commemorating one of the most important anniversaries: the 25th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in the country, the “basis of all our achievements,” said Rolando Jiménez, one of the historical leaders of the convening organization, the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh).
That was when “we stopped being criminals in the eyes of the State,” he noted in his speech.
Between 1875 and 1999, the Chilean penal code established sentences of between 541 days and 3 years in prison for adults who had consensual sexual relations with people of the same sex.
Today it is one of the countries in the Latin American vanguard. Marriage between people of the same sex is possible, and they can also adopt. Trans people under 18 can change their name on their birth certificate and there are up to 18 laws that protect the LGBTQ community although, according to Movilh, cases of homophobia and transphobia have grown in the last year.
Mexico, a strongly Catholic country, has also changed a lot since that first march by a handful of activists in 1979, a time of great official repression, where photographs of the time showed couples with banners reading “My son is homosexual and I’m proud of him”.
Today, families continue to be the lifeline for many activists. For a 23-year-old chemist who only identified himself as Járez, it has become a tradition to participate alongside his parents.
“It’s a day when we really get together because the other days of the year, literally, until Christmas, we don’t have the opportunity,” he said.
Same-sex marriage and name changes have advanced in many states with the support of Supreme Court rulings, and in 2023 the first non-binary passports were issued, a change at the federal level.
But the hate murders continue and also that year, one of those that most impacted the entire community occurred: that of Jesús Ociel Baena, an activist known to everyone as “the magistrade” because he was the first non-binary person to assume office. judicial in Mexico.
Insecurity is one of the concerns in many other parts of Latin America also affected by violence in general.
In Ecuador, Diane Rodríguez, coordinator of the march in Guayaquil, 270 kilometers southwest of the capital, asked for peace in the middle of a country that is very turbulent at the moment and where in the first six months 27 people from the community have been murdered, almost double that in the same period last year in the first semester.
In Peru, the main march planned for Saturday afternoon had the slogan “Nothing to cure,” a clear call to the Peruvian government, which this year issued a decree that considered seven gender identities, including transsexuality, to be “mental illnesses.” However, after criticism this week, it reversed course and corrected the provision.
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