Sweet like Sugercane, Strong as Rum

News from LGBT researcher Marten van den Berge in Peru

Tags: Peru , Civil Society Building

The Peruvian government puts little effort to change the situation of gays, lesbians and transsexuals. Fortunately this group increasingly knows how to organize itself, and not only in Peru’s capital Lima. As far as the jungle and the Andes, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual people (also known as LGBTs) organize themselves to fight for their rights. Below you can read notes drawn up by Marten van den Berge, a Dutch researcher who’s currently conducting research for Hivos and ISS in the Civil Society Building Knowledge Programme. Together with his Peruvian counterpart he is gaining insights into the functioning of social movements and democratization processes through research on the LGBT movement.

‘Already for two hours the bus is shaking me back and forth, on its way to Cartavio. Cartavio is a remote village with a few thousand residents, hidden behind sugar cane fields in the warm north of Peru. The village would have been unknown, if not for its cheap, locally produced rum and a recently set up organization for transsexuals. The instructions I received from a befriended gay-activist from Lima were clear: you take a bus, and when you get to Cartavio, you ask the first taxi driver you see to bring you to ‘La Chola Chambuca’ (ed.: “the Indian Chambuca”). And indeed, the first taxi driver I talk to brings me neatly to the entrance of a beauty saloon owned by ‘La Chola’. A rather large, but friendly and cheerful transsexual lady opens the door. I happened to arrive at the very right moment: in the tiny countryside beauty saloon twelve transsexual ladies had just started a meeting to coordinate their activities.

It might seem like a bizarre affair, to find a group of trans-activists in this remote area. At the start of my research, that Hivos and ISS subsidize as part of their Knowledge Programme, I had not expected this either. But after a three months of research on the Peruvian LGBT movement, it doesn’t surprise me anymore. Last week I was at a demonstration in Bagua Grande, a small village in the jungle. A group of activists had organized a public photo exhibition on sexual diversity. Before this event I was at a regional LGBT meeting in Chachapoyas, where activists from surrounding villages in the Amazon took part in designing an action plan. I have visited meetings and demonstrations in the most remote areas, with exotic names like Juanjui, Tarapoto, and Iquitos.

For the past few years LGBT activism in Peru has really increased and gained in strength. It started in the 1980s with the Movimiento Homosexual de Lima (MHOL) (ed.: Movement of Homosexuals in Lima). From a few organizations back then, it has now grown to over a hundred, all across the country. Sexual minorities do have a reason to take over the streets in Peru. End 2008 the MHOL, which is still one of the largest LGBT organizations in Peru, published a report which revealed that ‘every six days a homosexual gets killed in Peru’. A research published earlier in 2008 states that 81 percent of the Liman respondents rejects homosexual relationships. In 2005 the ‘National Research on Exclusion and Social Discrimination’ signaled that more than 75 percent of the Peruvians hold the same opinion. The prejudice that generally lives in Peruvian society is clear: homosexuality is not accepted. This is also seen when we look at crimes committed against LGBTs. In January 2010 there were six victims of ‘hate against LGBT’s’, of which one was trans-activist Ingrid, who was beaten up in her hotel room and then thrown out of the window from the third floor.

The Peruvian government does not seem willing to take any action to improve the situation of LGBTs. The opposite prevails: officially homosexuality is not prohibited, but in April 2008 the government voted against registered partnership for same-sex partners. More recently in May 2009, open homosexuality became unlawful within the military and the police. In the meantime this issue has been taken to the Constitutional Court, but in itself this is symbolic for the government’s opinion regarding sexual diversity. Considering sexual rights, Peru is one of the most conservative countries in the region. Last year Bolivia introduced a law that could even be an example to the Dutch government: the new constitution contains a law that bans discrimination on the basis of sexual preference or gender identity. Ecuador has now registered partnership for people of the same sex. In Uruguay gay couples can adopt children, while Cuba and Venezuela announced that they will introduce course material on public schools to inform school children on sexual diversity to prevent discrimination against LGBT communities.

Despite its conservative government and society, Peru has many groups who organize to resist gay discrimination. Like other social movements, the LGBT movement is diverse. The organizations have differing objectives and strategies. First there existed only large NGOs and they were mainly based in the capital. Now we also see smaller organizations, which have their roots in different parts of the country. Also their way of demonstrating has taken different shapes. From small artistic groups who want to inspire people on the streets to think about their traditional opinions on gender through controversial transvestite theatre play and acts, to the more hardcore political activists who tag along in labor union demonstrations, in an attempt to integrate the LGBT agenda in a broader struggle for a ‘better world’. We also see small student collectives who organize discussions and seminars around ‘coming out’ and sexual diversity, and larger LGBT-NGOs who start a political lobby, aiming for the public authorities as their audience.

The fact that more LGBTs organize themselves is in itself a step forward: sexual diversity becomes more visible in public life. The rightwing conservative government has not given in to the demands of the LGBT community, but local and regional state bodies have become more accessible and open. Local LGBT groups, backed up by the larger LGBT and human rights organizations in Lima, sometimes successfully put these regional and local state bodies under pressure to carry through anti-discriminatory laws. The remote provinces of Arequipa, Abancay, Apurimac, Junin and Iquitos now have more legal LGBT protection in place than on national level. That these protection measures are necessary, becomes clear at the meeting in Cartavio. The transsexual ‘Kiki’ ventilates that she has just been evicted from her house for her trans-identity. ‘Dana’, also a transvestite, has been beaten up by her brother for wearing feminine clothes. At the meeting plans are being made to give shelter to Kiki, and talk to Dana’s family about the abuse. “It’s not like in Lima, where you can knock on the door of big NGOs for help, and who have contacts with international organizations”, explains one of the transvestites at La Chola. “Who helps us here? Most people have never heard of Cartavio. That’s why we have to organize, to help ourselves, to ask attention for our situation.”

Through my research I also intend to contribute to the empowerment of the LGBT movement in Peru. When the experiences and needs of the LGBT activists on the country side are drawn up, I want to attract the attention of larger Lima-based NGOs and international solidarity networks. Although there has not been much interest for these LGBT groups in the remote areas in Peru, the transsexuals in Cartavio remain strong and positive. “As you might have observed”, says Chola Chambuca with a blink, “it’s hard to ignore transvestites in Cartavio, we do not go unnoticed. We are tasty and sweet like our sugar cane, and strong like our rum”.

Note: This article was translated from Dutch to English. The original article can be found in the ‘GK Gaykrant’ of 26 March 2010.

Read more on the LGBT research of Marten and his team here: http://diversidadsexualenmovimiento.blogspot.com