The Good Life vs. the Frontlines: the problem of translation in coalition-building between activists and scholars in the implementation of an anti-homophobia agenda in the Americas (original) (raw)
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ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America, 2023
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In the decade of 1990, LGBT activists engaged in the so-called AIDS-NGOs created important networks with the state in Brazil. In these interactions, health issues justified and legitimized their grievances. The " public health " frame-developed by the sanitary reform movement – shaped activist's perceptions about health policy. But transformations in these interactions occurred in the following decade. The number of organizations focused on LGBT rights rose in Brazil. Sexuality increasingly became " an independent and specific dimension of the practice of rights, no more necessarily connected to health concerns " (Carrara, 2010: 135). Activists started to use the " homophobia " frame in these interactions to interpret violence and prejudice. What are the continuities and ruptures between the " public health " and the " homophobia " frames? Which processes created this grievance transformation? This article is focused on the first of these questions. The paper develops the theoretical grounds for the inquiry and presents its preliminary results.
Mending the Divide: Lessons from LGBTQ + Movements for Latin American Studies
Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2023
Latin American has made remarkable progress in the last twenty years regarding LGBTQ+ rights. More recently, LGBTQ-related issues have had major impacts on national and regional politics. However, most of the literature about Latin American social movements still largely ignores LGBTQ+ movements. This article argues that including LGBTQ+ movements in social movements research is essential to further our understanding of LGBTQ+ politics in the region and of Latin American politics and social movements more broadly, as well as to address the enduring lack of academic engagement with gender and sexuality as political topics.
2019
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Democratizing processes in Latin America are giving way to new citizen demands. As the political process opens, more actors find access to the public sphere. This paper analyzes the growing demands for LGBT rights in Latin America. The region stands out as remarkable changes have taken place throughout with legalization of domestic partnerships in Colombia, Ecuador, northern Mexico, Brazil and Uruguay and same-sex marriage in Argentina, Mexico City. The paper explores the range of policy changes throughout the region, and how these developments have changed the landscape of rights-based discourses in Latin America. Is there something intrinsically different about Latin American societies that have given rise to LGBT rights and political recognition of this marginalized group? Have democratization processes favored LGBT groups or are their demands consistent with processes of political development in the region? Given the degree of social mobilization of LGBT political actors, relatively little attention has been paid to the advances through persuasive tactics of this smaller group. Nonetheless, meaningful policy changes have taken place within the last decade, in particular with regards to the extension of same-sex marriage or recognition of civil unions. The trend is significant and surprising since not until recently this same population was prosecuted, victimized and to the very least discriminated against. Do these policy changes symbolize a transformation of societal configurations? Or have social mobilizations by LGBT groups been effective in framing policy issues? This paper will explore these questions while taking on the task of summarizing the underlying trends in the changing political landscape of sexual politics in Latin America.
A Kaleidoscope of LGBT Organizing
The contemporary LGBT movement has transpired into a global phenomenon, fostering an explosion of social and political organizing in which individuals marginalized on the basis of their sexual identities have mobilized to resist and challenge the oppressive forces of a sexually normative world. While this impressive wave of mobilization for LGBT groups has been motivated by the ferocity of external opposition, internal struggles have consistently yielded divisive and exclusionary politics that have effectively diminished potentialities for transformative change. This exploratory enterprise seeks to understand and assess the strategies of resistance and organizing that are accessed by LGBT groups and individuals, and is aimed at examining the challenges that they are confronted both within and outside of their communities. The project is designed to provide a platform for the participants to share their experiences and opinions as active contributors to the LGBT movement, and is intended to illustrate the breadth and multiplicity of the LGBT experience both globally and locally. The objective is not to contemplate on why LGBT people are oppressed, but rather to discern what strategies they enact in responding to, tolerating or challenging this oppression, and how and why these strategies are developed and deployed.
The Emerging LGBTI Rights Challenge to Transitional Justice in Latin America
1 Latin American truth commissions have recently expanded their purview to include cases of violence against gender and sexual minorities as human rights violations worthy of investigation. This article proposes that grappling with this emerging LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) rights challenge requires a queer, intersectional and decolonial analytical lens that underscores the relevance of global LGBTI politics, and critiques transitional justice foundational assumptions regarding temporality and binary logics. In practical terms, this analytical lens enacts a double move by unearthing the deeply tangled and life-extinguishing roots of impunity surrounding violence against gender and sexual minorities while advocating for the realization of LGBTI people's full citizenship. K E Y W OR D S : LGBTI, gender, sexual orientation, colonial legacy, Latin America Over the last several decades, the search for truth following an internal armed conflict or an authoritarian regime has mainstreamed attention to gender difference. More recently, Latin American truth commissions have expanded their purview to include cases of violence against gender and sexual minorities as human rights violations worthy of examination. The goals of transitional justice are to redress abuses and dispense justice, facilitate truth and reconciliation, and restore rule of law and democracy for countries that have suffered massive human rights violations under armed conflict and/or authoritarian regimes. The emerging visibility of LGBTI rights challenges the field and practice of transitional justice to develop relevant philosophical , theoretical and conceptual approaches to address cases of violence against gender and sexual minorities. This article proposes that grappling with this challenge requires a queer, intersectional and decolonial analytical lens that underscores the relevance of global LGBTI politics, and critiques transitional justice foundational