To mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia Ambassador Dickson asked Jorge López Sologaistoa, Executive Director of OASIS to comment on the situation in Guatemala. You can also learn more about this issue here http://dayagainsthomophobia.org/ – also available in Spanish: http://dayagainsthomophobia.org/es/ .
“In a very strict sense, homophobia is understood as an obsessive distaste towards homosexuals…” This was the response of my friend Maria Olga to the first question of the interviewer. On that day we had been invited to speak, on television, about the social exclusion suffered by the Communities of Sexual Diversity and Gender in Guatemala.
There is no doubt that when approaching the topic of social exclusion we face big challenges, especially in a country like Guatemala, where 75 per cent of the cultivable land is in the hands of 2 per cent of its inhabitants… this is just to illustrate the panorama of contrasts, where many people survive in conditions of poverty and pain.
Returning to the television programme, our intention was to take advantage of the commemoration of 17th May, to highlight the crimes of hatred committed against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexual and intersexual (amongst others), as a result of intolerance towards sexual orientation and gender identity.
But up until now I have not mentioned what the 17th May commemoration is about. It turns out that on this date, but in 1990, the World Health Organization (WHO), at its General Assembly, declared that homosexuality was not a psychiatric disease.
For years – at least in the past two decades – this had been one of the focuses of the social debate in Europe and North America, since there was still an understanding that homosexuality was “abnormal”.
Already in 1973 the Psychiatric American Association (PAA) had eliminated homosexuality from its Manual of Diagnosis of Mental illnesses (DSM-II), but conservative sectors continued arguing that such an “achievement” was due to the political pressures of interest groups; an accusation that was based on fact since pressure was exercised by groups of people who were demanding that society stopped referring to them as ” mental patients”.
Today there are still people who think that heterosexuality is the only acceptable expression of sexuality, but we believe that this debate is now closed as of 17th May 1990. And it was not until 2005 when the world celebrated what is now known as the International Day against Homophobia.
It is worth mentioning that, at least in theory, lesbian groups would see their demands included in the actions against the homophobia, but it is common to hear recriminations that in this battle we must name all the different identities. In this sense, we have achieved some milestones, although intersexual and asexual persons continue in their almost complete anonymity.
The television programme was well received, but we were careful to avoid sensationalism, despite presenting painful histories, such as that of Eduardo: a young person whom we rescued from people who had illegally captured him to “treat” his homosexuality. And we avoided the temptation of presenting murders, extrajudicial executions and suicides, which would better illustrate the absurd crimes of hatred that happen in Guatemalan society, but that would transmit our pain to those persons who know our humanitarian cause.
(*) Executive Director of OASIS
