From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Lesbian & Gay Struggle in El Salvador
Date: 13 Jul 1995 00:08:50 GMT

/** reg.elsalvador: 88.0 **/
** Topic: Dignas: Lesbian & Gay Struggle **
** Written 10:34 AM  Jul 11, 1995 by nicarao:pazsal in cdp:reg.elsalvador **
The following essay is written by las Mujeres por la Dignidad y 
la Vida of El Salvador.  It was first printed in the weekly 
Primera Plana, 30 June 1995, p. 10. 
 
For more information about "the Dignas'" work, contact: 
Mujeres por la Dignidad y la Vida 
Calle Gabriela Mistral #224 
San Salvador, El Salvador 
503 226 1879 
 
                    WE ARE MANY MORE THAN TWO 
 
       by Mujeres por la Dignidad y la Vida, "las Dignas" 
             Women for Dignity and Life, El Salvador 
                                 
 
June 28, 1969, in the Stonewall zone of New York, a group of 
lesbians and gays was massacred by the police.  The crime:  to be
in a public place without repressing their attraction toward 
persons of the same sex.  This date marks the beginning of the 
public organization of the gay movement in the United States and
other countries of the world.  In honor of the persons 
assassinated on this date, each year the International Day of Gay
Pride is celebrated.  Today, the place of the massacre is a zone
almost free of prejudice where couples of gays and lesbians show
to the world their way to love.  Yearly there is a march of 
thousands of people who arrive from all areas of the United 
States and many many countries of the world. 
 
Twenty-six years after this act, in El Salvador, people who are 
gays or lesbians suffer persecution, discrimination, and 
repudiation from the majority of the population.  Here there is 
no organized gay movement where women and men struggle from the 
legal public platform for their right to a sexuality free from 
prejudices.  The family, the community, the school, the church 
and even the government, try to hide, "satanize," and repress a 
reality that many Salvadoran men and women live in privacy.  And
that is not all; they also educate people in an institutional 
manner to develop homophobia and lesbophobia.  
 
Against wind and tide, a group of more than 25 lesbians organized
a collective called Media Luna (Half Moon); they gather for 
discussions of, besides their problematic, the way to go out into
public light with their plan vindicating their sexual option.  
One of the key points of the discussion is to demystify the dirty
image that is held about lesbians, conscienticizing the social 
and political movements where they can come together in 
acknowledgment and defense of their rights as civilians. 
 
A few years ago several transvestite homosexuals were found 
mysteriously assassinated in the "zona roja" of central San 
Salvador; and the police did not even get involved.  It is also 
enough to remember the assassinations that occured in the famous
street of La Praviana and the impunity with which these cases 
were treated.  Which institutions, people or other organizations
raised their voices?  No one.  So it appears that because these 
acts occur against homosexuals, they are not considered a crime. 
 
Because basically, in public opinion, they are not persons.  
Because to be gay or lesbian is synonymous with illness or 
delinquency, to name some of the labels.  Because they go 
"against the norm," becoming a "deviation" that must be attacked
and erradicated in all possible ways.   
 
In the dawn of the 21st century, Salvadoran society acts as if it
were living in the Middle Ages, but instead of witches being 
persecuted, people who do not have "normal" behavior are.  No 
political party nor radio or television communication media even
approach this theme; they do not consider it "important" as there
are no statistics that show the quantity of aggressions of this 
type against x number of gays.  However, it is clear that there 
are homosexuals and lesbians of all ages, classes and ideologies. 
 
In order to hide this reality, it is continually maintained that
sexuality free of prejudices only can exist in the so-called 
"developed countries" that have other forms of thinking. 
 
But even in these countries, similar experiences are also lived. 
 
Until 1974, homosexuality was on the list of mental illnesses of
the American Association of Psychiatry.  Only the enormous 
pressure of gay activists achieved the removal from the list of 
an illness that everyone already considered non-existant.  Also,
the advance of AIDS, an illness that in its beginnings turned 
homosexuals into its preferred victims, has increased the 
prejudices against the collective of gays.  With the banner of 
AIDS, a huge campain of disparagement was launched against this 
marginated group, negating what statistics indicate:  presently,
the majority of infected are heterosexuals. 
 
Lesbians and gays show that they feel happy with their option 
after having accepted themselves as they are.  But the real 
conditions of hostility and of persecution impede these persons 
from fulfilling and accepting their affinity in a public manner,
just like heterosexuals.  And also the "why" of these attitudes 
must be questioned, if supposedly "we are equal before God and 
the law."  Lesbians and homosexuals demonstrate that the coin of
sexual desire has other faces than heterosexuality.

** End of text from cdp:reg.elsalvador **

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