GAYS & LESBIANS The Closet Door Swings Open
Green, James & Asis, Enrique
When Dr. Francisco Estrada Valle, aco-founderof AVES, one of Mexico's first AIDS-education programs, failed to show up last July 12 at a school seminar on AIDS prevention he was scheduled to...
...The police and government offiJames Green is a coordinating editor of Latin American Perspectives and a doctoral candidate in Latin American history at the University of California, Los Angeles...
...As a result of the demonstrations and press coverage, the Argentine government was forced last year to grant the group legal status...
...been murdered...
...In Latin America, many new lesbian and gay organizations formed in the last decade to confront AIDS, and fight homophobia and anti-gay violence...
...The coming to power of military governments in Peru, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Ar- gentina, and Latin America's profound economic crisis held back the development of the movement...
...In August, 197 1, Nuestro Mundojoined with a group of gay intellectuals to form the Argentine Homosexual Liberation Front (FLH...
...In Colombia, by contrast, the systematic na- ture of the death squads has frightened and discouraged gay and lesbian activ- ists from establishing permanent organizations...
...In the early 1970s, groups were formed in Mexico, Argentina and Puerto Rico, three industrialized countries that had large middle classes and were not under military dictatorships...
...The Catholic Church hierarchy tended to support these regimes and promoted a moral value system that included the condemnation of homosexuality...
...ON THE BRINK OF AN AIDS CRISIS A gay man with AIDS in a Rio de Janeiro shantytown...
...and to combat homophobic attitudes in Latin American society...
...While the purpose of the meeting was to exchange experiences and develop greater cooperation among the new gay and lesbian organizations, the Congress ended up polarizing over a resolution to participate in the upcoming May Day demonstration being held in the midst of a massive metalworkers' strike in the Greater Sdo Paulo area...
...the projects director of CONSIDA, one of Argentina's most effective AIDS organizations, says that the Argentine government refuses to take the issue seriously...
...They are generally backed by independent groups of right-wing extremists...
...In Nicaragua, the new sodomy law signedby President Chamorro will likely inhibit any reference to homosexuality in that country's AIDS education...
...In Brazil, Grupo Gay da Bahia, under the leadership of anthropology professor Luis Mott, has carried out a national campaign against violence although the organization remains some- what isolated in Salvador, in the northeastern part of the country...
...However, unlike the movement in the United States, the gay and lesbian movement in Latin America had no long tradition of homophile organizing to look back to...
...A group of writers and intellectuals began publishing Lampido, a monthly newspaper sold at newsstands throughout Brazil, which declared its intention to speak for the unrepresented "minorities"-women, blacks, homosexuals and Indians...
...In countries such as Argentina which traditionally have had a good public health-care system, the severe debt crisis of the 1980s resulted in dramatic cuts in social services and a move toward the privatization of health care...
...Enrique Asis is an Argentine economist residing in San Francisco, and the founder of the Latino/a Network...
...Over 50 gays and lesbians ended up joining the May Day march, and rallied with banners opposing discrimination against homosexual workers and in support of striking metalworkers...
...The killers are typically "social-clean up" death squads which operate in most major cities in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru...
...Others argued that the gay and lesbian organizations were too weak to join other mobilizations and needed to maintain their autonomy...
...To give a sense of the extent of the problem, Grupo Gay da Bahia (GGB), a Brazilian gay organization, has documented the murders of 1,200 gays and lesbians in Brazil over the last decade, often by gay hustlers who are let off or given light prison sentences...
...By 1983 much of the movement Support the Prevention of AIDS (GAPA), estimates that three million people are HIV-positive...
...Street people, transvestites, lesbians and gay men, however, fought back against the police action in what is now known as the Stonewall Rebellion...
...more pervasive are conservative family-values campaigns which target homosexuals...
...They were warmly received by the striking workers...
...The murder of Dr...
...Francisco Estrada Valle was met with protests in Mexico City as well as an international campaign to protest the Mexican government's laxity in investigating the mur- ders...
...The best-known case of the fight for legal recognition was waged by the group Argentine Homosexual Community (CHA...
...This means that people with HIV/AIDS cannot rely on the government for much assistance...
...The three had been gagged, stabbed and strangled...
...Violence is the most extreme form of homophobia in Latin America...
...It dissolved in mid-1976 in the immediate aftermath of the March 1976 coup d'etat which brought to power a military dictatorship...
...In the 1970s when gay and lesbian liberation movements emerged in the United States and Europe, many coun- tries in Latin America were suffering under military dictatorships...
...rate: the Bahamas (903.8 AIDS cases per million inhabitants), Bermuda (396.6), Honduras (91.5), Belize (60.4), and Brazil (53.3...
...had dissipated, exhausted from internal fighting, lacking a clear vision and facing difficult economic conditions...
...Dawn of the Movement On June 28, 1969, New York police carried out a routine raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay men's bar in Greenwich Village, New York...
...In the United States, the devastating effects of AIDS on the gay men's com- munity combined with right-wing fun- damentalist anti-homosexual campaigns injected new vitality in the lesbian and gay movement in the 1980s...
...In Argentina, for example, the Church has pressured the government to eliminate any reference to homosexuality, condoms or sexuality from the official AIDS-prevention campaign, essentially eviscerating it...
...To Report Anti-gay Violence, Contact...etc...
...While anti-homosexual attitudes, fueled by the Catholic Church, still predominate, there is a sense that things have changed and that nothing will ever be quite the same for gays and lesbians throughout the Americas...
...The generals arrested and killed thousands including gays and lesbians and wiped out the incipient homosexual-rights movement...
...The police have so far not arrested any suspects...
...AIDS and gay-rights organizations, however, insist that the murders are part of a generalized wave of gay bashing and violence against Mexican homosexuals...
...SOMOS attempted to build links with other movements by joining the Unified Black Movement in protest demonstrations and supporting the emerging feminist movement...
...Gay and lesbian activists in the United States and Europe in coordination with CHA then organized a campaign to challenge President Carlos Menem while he was on tour in the United States and Europe last year...
...At the same time that a movement was developing in the United States and Europe, homosexuals in different parts of Latin America were beginning to come together to fight homophobia...
...The Pan American Health Organization's December report, "AIDS Surveillance in the Americas," says a cumulative total of 59,723 AIDS cases have been reported in Latin America, and 24,500 people have died of the illness...
...The Catholic Church's official policy condemning homosexuality gives an additional veneer of legitimacy to their crimes...
...The military used appeals to Christian morality, the family and patriotism to legitimize their rule...
...He and his boyfriend had just finished paying off the furniture for their small one-bedroom apart- ment near Avenida Santa Fe, a gay cruising areain Buenos Aires...
...While AIDS is not as common in Latin America as in Africa or the United States, activists are concerned that grossly inadequate government funding for AIDS education, research and health care is creating a near-crisis in many countries in the region...
...Similar stories have surfaced in Lima, where there is an active gay night life...
...The death squads justify their actions by charging that these homosexuals are carriers of the AIDS virus and that their street activities drive tourists away...
...Government-sanctioned anti-gay campaigns, therefore, were based on the violation of "moral propriety" or vagrancy...
...On December 4, 1991, eight homosexuals were killed on the streets of Barrio La Hariscal, a residential and cnmmercial eritnr nf flitn The lnnrl press noted that the police knew in advance of at least one group of residents who had threatened to "clean up" the tourist sector by ridding it of homosexuals and prostitutes in this manner...
...The countries in Latin America with the greatest number of reported AIDS cases are: Brazil (31,364), Mexico (11,034), Haiti (3,086), Argentina (2,745), Venezuela (2,173), Honduras (1,976), and the Dominican Republic (1,809...
...The percapita AIDS rate in the United States, including Puerto Rico and the U.S...
...Francisco Estrada Valle, aco-founderof AVES, one of Mexico's first AIDS-education programs, failed to show up last July 12 at a school seminar on AIDS prevention he was scheduled to lead, his friends became worried and reported him missing to the police...
...Many victims are young male prostitutes and transvestites, forced by hopelessness and poverty to rent their bodies on the streets...
...VOLUME XXVI, NUMBER 4 (FEBRUARY 1993) Two years later, in Brazil, in the midst of a democratic opening provoked by a severe economic crisis and the mobilization of students, intellectuals and workers against the military dictatorship, gays organized that country's first homosexual-rights movement...
...Probably the first homosexual-rights organization in Latin America was Nuestro Mundo (Our World), founded on November 1, 1969 in Buenos Aires by an ex-militant of the Communist Party expelled for being homosexual...
...Last July, Chamorro signed into law the country's new penal code which includes Article 204 (formerly Article 205) mandating sentences of one to three years for anyone who "induces, promotes, propagandizes or practices in a scandalous manner the cohabitation of individuals of the same sex...
...Early the next morning Estrada's body was found in an apartment in southern Mexico City with the bodies of two other gay men-Rene de la Torre Gonzilez, a physician, and Javier Rivero Mel6ndez, a schoolteacher...
...Because the Napoleonic Code which eliminated sanctions against homosexuality was adopted as the legal system in most Latin American countries during the period of independence, until recently only Ecuador and Chile had laws on the book that punished homosexual activities between consenting adults...
...Brazil and Mexico have perhaps the strongest groups working for this cause...
...He had been in a threeyear relationship...
...Besides attempting to organize the gay community, it also participated in leftist demonstrations, including a major rally against the military take-over in Chile in September, 1973...
...That same week three other gay men were murdered in similar circumstances around Mexico City...
...Soon thereafter, the Group of Homosexual Affirmation (SOMOS) was founded in Sio Paulo...
...Printed over the names in bold red type is the statement: "Causa Mortis: Prejudice-Each Week a Homosexual is Assassinated in Brazil-How Many More Victims of Prejudice and Discrimination Must We Have...
...to gain legal recognition of their organizations...
...Yet today, activists throughout Latin America are again optimistic as new groups emerge to fight homophobia, anti-gay violence, and government indifference to the AIDS crisis...
...Over the last five years, gay and lesbian organizations have worked in at least four main areas: to denounce and combat gay bashing and homophobic violence...
...Gay organizations in Mexico and Brazil have mounted the region's strongest campaigns against anti-gay violence...
...A New Resurgence...
...It has been almost 24 years since the first homosexual organization in Latin America was founded in a working- class suburb of Buenos Aires...
...No overall estimates have been made of the level of anti-gay violence through- out Latin America largely because lesbian and gay groups from different countries have only recently begun to exchange information and coordinate activities...
...SOMOS and Lampido inspired the formation of over a dozen other groups throughout Brazil, many of which met in April, 1980 at the First National Congress of Homosexual Groups...
...In particular, they emphasized the connection between feminism and the gay movement, and the need to encourage a generalized sexual liberation of society...
...The doctor told him he was HIV-positive...
...It takes this display to demonstrations and protests...
...Health-care cuts and homophobic attitudes are contributing to the rapid spread of AIDS...
...This compares to 249,234 AIDS cases and 164,884 deaths in the United States...
...Last November, representatives from 19 South American lesbian and gay groups gathered in Santiago, Chile to discuss their experiences...
...In Colombia over 328 anti-gay killings have been reported between 1986 and 1990, though, according to the Bogotibased human-rights group Intercongre- gational Commission for Justice and Peace, most crimes against homosexuals go unreported...
...cials declared the deaths crimes of passion...
...A month later, the gay-rights movement in Siio Paulo, again led by the left wing, organized a protest march of 800 homosexuals and others against police sweeps in downtown SIo Paulo...
...Founded in 1983 after the demise of the military dictatorship, CHA presented three separate petitions to the government for legal recognition, all of which were denied by the Justice Ministry...
...The per capita rate in a number of Latin America countries is higher than or comparable to the U.S...
...The Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (CUT), Brazil's largest labor federation, and the Workers Party have supported this campaign by publishing a poster which lists the names of murder victims...
...Just as the demise of the dictatorship in Brazil provided the space for a homosexual-rights movement to coalesce in 1978, so too the end of military rule in Argentina and Uruguay in 1983 and a return to electoral democracy in Chile in 1989 created an environment conducive to organizing...
...The closet door is crashing down every- where...
...Last year the Gathering of Lesbian Latinas in Puerto Rico brought together 158 women, half of whom were Latinas residing in United States and the other half were from Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica...
...When Juan Ortega (a pseudonym) went to his doctor three years ago for an HIV test, he was sure that he would not have the virus...
...Gay and lesbian activists immediately challenged the constitutionality of the article in an appeal presented before the Nicaraguan Supreme Court on November 9. Hazel Fortseca of Colectivo Nosotras, the country's main lesbian organization, fears that in addition to criminalizing gay and lesbian activities, the new law will cripple AIDS-education efforts because campaigns that encourage safe sex will likely be construed as promoting homosexuality...
...Although he did not practice safe sex, he thought AIDS was only a danger for those who went to Brazil for Carnival or who had slept with a visiting tourist...
...Like the early gay-liberation movement in the United States, these organizations considered the fight against the oppression of homosexuals to be inextricably linked to the struggles of other social movements...
...Virgin Islands, is 167.5 per million inhab- itants...
...While it is impossible to make accurate estimates about the incidence of HIV in the population, in Brazil, Nelson Solano Vianna, a long-time activist with the Sdo Paulo organization Group to Gay-rights organizations retreated in the face of deep divisions between those who wished to link up with the Workers Party (PT) and other social movements, and those who preferred to remain autonomous and dedicate them- selves to internal consciousness-raising...
...While figures on the distribution of AIDS cases by category are somewhat questionable due to the fact that many men decline to admit homosexual con- tacts, the Pan-American Health Organi- zation calculates that in 1991 homo- sexuals and bisexuals comprised 67% of the AIDS cases in the Andean region, 56% in the Southern Cone, 25% in Central America, and 13% in the Caribbean...
...Human-rights and gay and lesbian organizations have responded to antigay violence with protest demonstrations and denunciations...
...There are only two health centers for AIDS treatment in the entire country and the conditions there are precarious to say the least...
...According to Colombian gay activist Ricardo Contreras, these groups are comprised of young men from wealthy families as well as police officers...
...The group has created a mobile gay holocaust memorial, consisting of a string of small banners with the name and the cause of death of lesbians and gays who have A gay-pride parade in Mexico City...
...The Stonewall Rebellion sparked the formation of hundreds of gay-liberation groups throughout the country...
...These international meet- ings help the different gay and lesbian organizations to overcome the isolation that they encounter doing work in their own countries...
...The homophobic attitudes of government officials and the Catholic Church are a barrier to adequate AIDS education...
...Javier L. Hourcade Belloco...
...While the return to electoral democracy in many Latin American countries has somewhat neutralized this right-wing traditional family ideology, President Violeta Chamorro is heading a new conservative campaign in Nicaragua which has made homosexuals one of its targets...
...When the American AIDS Foundation announced in Amsterdam last yearthat it was giving six Argentine AIDS groups a total grant of $300,000 for AIDS prevention and care, the Minister of Health refuted the claim that Argentina was on the brink of a severe crisis," he said...
...The new organization published eight issues of a bulletin, SOMOS, between December, 1973 and January, 1976...
...Gays and lesbians in Ecuador and Peru have also been victims of violent attacks...
...Gay and lesbian organizations are also starting to coordinate their work on an international scale...
...The women met to share experiences and encourage future common activities...
...The day is commemorated by parades and demonstrations throughout the world the last weekend in June...
...The Sandinista bloc in the national assembly voted against this constitutional reform...
...A sector of the movement, led by the leftists within SOMOS, wished to join in solidarity 5with the labor struggle...
...to provide support to AIDS groups...
Vol. 26 • February 1993 • No. 4
