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The battle for full recognition of LGBTQ+ rights remains an uphill struggle in Colombia. The work of organisations such as Caribe Afirmativo, and the establishment of LGBTQ+ community centres in marginalized areas of the country show the progress being made.
Article researched and written by Valerie Meléndez, Samuel Pardo & María del Pilar Villacob
Colombia is a land of contrasts. Although, more often than not, it presents itself as a culturally and politically diverse society working towards openness and acceptance, it is impossible to ignore those instances in which, as a community, we have failed those in disadvantaged conditions. Colombia is well known for being a country that sadly overlooks those who are willing to raise their voices for others in need, those who put their lives on the line for the greater good, and simply sweeps certain matters under the rug for the sake of appearances.
Conservative as ever, Colombia is also a place where people constantly try to fit into society’s standards in order to be accepted and to avoid discrimination. Traditional values, such as Christian and Catholic values, are strongly connected to the Colombian perspective of society's construction and morality. In a seemingly hostile environment like this, it can be difficult for minorities to achieve equality and to fight for their rights. This is the case of the LGBTQ+ community, which in spite of the fairly recent growth and acceptance of certain communities in principal cities around the country, members are still constantly being harassed and assaulted in more secluded areas and other cities with much less tolerance. In these instances, their human rights are being infringed and stepped on as if they did not exist. Many of these individuals raise their voices and risk their lives to make a change for their people, becoming the leaders of countless LGBTQ+ generations whose problems have been constantly erased and minimised.
In Colombia, LGBTQ+ leaders have stated on multiple occasions that the system works against them. Although the Constitution is clear when saying the LGBTQ+ community has the right to an education, a job, a family, access to healthcare and all the things a non-queer person gets, this is being contradicted on a daily basis. According to different trans activists that contributed to “Transcending Barriers: Rights and full citizenship for people with transgender life experience”, an event created to support and give trans people a space to raise their voices, members of the LGBTQ+ community are being deprived of their rights because their needs are often the lowest priority in the institutions they attend. In the words of an Afro-Colombian trans activist, they get excluded from spaces that are supposed to be inclusive, claiming that the labour market for transgender people in many spaces is scarce. Moreover, if the person gets into the laboral market, their identity tends to be restricted and disrespected, making it a negative and dehumanising experience. Another example of this, is the discrimination by teachers towards LGBTQ+ students. In 2015, 37% of LGBTQ+ students reported that they had been insulted by their teachers with homophobic and/or transphobic comments, which makes their school lives difficult and provokes a lack of motivation for getting an education in these students (Sentiido & Colombia Diversa, 2016, cited in Choi, 2020); the majority of these cases end up in favour of the teachers, who get the support of the schools and conservative parents who consider queer youth as a threat for their children’s education.
Being culturally diverse is a quality possessed by Colombia , “a country of contrasts, an assorted cultural landscape that hides a thousand-year-old tradition of diverse peoples'', according to Brand Colombia’s website. Indigenous communities, one of Colombia’s main sources of diversity, with almost two million people and representing 4,4% of Colombia’s population, find themselves often marginalised and displaced from their traditional set of values and beliefs. Therefore, it is possible to see people that are being doubly marginalised when they are simultaneously part of the LGBTQ+ community and an ethnic community such as indigenous communities. Indigenous groups in the Amazon region have established one village that holds no punishments for LGBTQ+ members if they follow certain conditions such as not living under the same roof or not kissing in public, in order to be as cautious as possible. One can say that in this instance, the LGBTQ+ members find at least tolerance, if not acceptance. Yet this example is an exception and this represents a small sample of progress in terms of endorsement. An article from France 24, describes the village that receives gay men in the Amazon: “In recent decades, the community's leaders said they have halted cruel anti-gay punishments and offered a measure of refuge, but with caveats for about 20 gay residents like Sangama, Saul Olarte and Nilson Silva.” This village called Nazareth is one of the few safe places where indigenous queer men can be themselves, yet still with some reservations because of the novelty that this represents for some Indigenous communities. And just as social leaders have become a target of hate and violence in Colombia, so have LGBTQ+ members. Both of these cases show how indigenous communities are opening their ideological horizons to gender and sexual diversity and providing help to them while feeling empathy as a fellow minority and acknowledging queer indigenous’ people’s double struggle.
The picture in other indigenous communities elsewhere in Colombia is complex. For example, according to David Rodriguez, a gay person belonging to the Wayuu community in northern Colombia “for indigenous people the homosexual or LGBTQ+ person generally does not exist. He is considered an aberration”. A Wayuu leader also had his word speaking about homosexuality in La Guajira, stating that “the belief locally is that homosexuality is a kind of punishment or curse. A demon is thought to live in a gay man and "must be driven out," says the Wayuu leader from Riohacha (Vassigh, 2022). Such comments demonstrate that there is a lot of work to be done in order to create cultural bridges between the Indigenous community and the LGBTQ+ community who, little by little, are crossing paths more often than what they used to.
Although the Colombian Constitution declares life as the most important and valuable right to exist, the reality does not always match this. Social leaders and members of the LGBTQ+ community suffer from constant death threats, and even lose their lives in the fight for their freedom in an oppressive society. According to a report from the human rights Ombudsman's office, at least 63 LGBTQ+ people were murdered in 2020. 17 transgender women, 12 gay men, and 6 lesbian women were among the victims . As a minority, their lives are already at risk of being victims of hate crimes and assault, and being social leaders just adds another number to this dangerous equation, as can be seen in the case of Christina Cantillo. Christina was a fearless trans woman and activist in Santa Marta who taught teenagers about sexual and reproductive rights. A month prior to her murder, she had already started receiving death threats, and had tried to seek out help with the UNP (National Unity Protection) but to no avail. Regional NGOs, such as Caribe Afirmativo, were also reached out to in order to find protection for Christina, but it was already too late; Christina was shot dead near her home in Santa Marta on December 7th 2021. Crimes against the members of the community are characterised by impunity granted for the perpetrators, with the Colombian justice system seemingly favouring those who are aligned to the system rather than the many marginalised communities which often find themselves as victims. However, there is still hope out there.
There are organisations which are aware of the struggles that LGBTQ+ people experience in Colombia as a minority, and they put all of their efforts into creating a safe space for all of these people whose place in the world has been put on trial. An example of an NGO dedicated to the protection of these communities is Caribe Afirmativo, “an organisation working in the Caribbean part of Colombia and currently monitoring the level of violence against Trans women''. They have established safe houses around towns in Colombia’s Caribbean region, and their investigation work has also been used in news reports and in the media. Other organizations such as Colombia Diversa fight for the recognition of these rights, and then there’s others like Sentiido, an NGO that since 2013 has been confronting misinformation around gender and sexual diversity.
It is very clear that acceptance for the LGBTQ+ community in Colombia will not come as easy as one may wish. There is still a lot of unjustified hate inside of the hearts of many within society, and misinformation in the media. Yet if there’s something to learn about this situation, it's that there’s always going to be someone willing to speak up for everyone, someone watching everyone’s back. There is work from hundreds of organisations that work with thousands of leaders in Colombia. Leaders who prefer to put their lives on the line, than conform to a system which constantly snuffs out the fire of their fight. At the end of the day, the LGBTQ+ community needs, like other minorities, the awareness and protection of diversified narratives that put them in the spotlight, at least enough to bring them vindication over the rights that they share with common individuals, because that’s what they are, part of Us, part of Colombia.
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