A Taiwan court has struck down a rule requiring trans people to have surgery in order to be legally recognised in their correct gender.
Under a government rule, trans people in Taiwan have been forced to have their reproductive organs surgically removed in order to have their gender legally recognised.
A plaintiff named only as Xiao E brought a case to the Taipei High Administrative Court arguing that the policy was unconstitutional. On Thursday (23 September), the court ruled in their favour.
In its ruling, the court said the plaintiff had met all the requirements to have their gender legally recognised. It found that the government’s surgery requirement violated principles of legal reservation, equality and proportionality.
The ruling was hailed as a landmark victory for LGBT+ rights by E-Ling Chiu, director of Amnesty International Taiwan.
“The court’s decision to waive compulsory surgical requirements for people seeking gender affirmation is a landmark moment for transgender rights in Taiwan,” Chiu said.
“Trans people in Taiwan face discrimination and inequality in the legal system and in their daily lives, especially in the workplace and in school.
“Self-determined gender is a cornerstone of a person’s identity, and this ruling highlights the advancement of gender equality and human rights in Taiwan.”
LGBT+ rights activists urged Taiwan’s government to strike down the rule
Chiu added: “We now call on the Ministry of Interior to follow up on this ruling by abolishing the requirement of reproductive organ removal surgery as a proof for those who wish to change their gender as registered at birth by the government.
“The Taiwanese government must offer options that protect gender equality for trans and non-binary people who wish to affirm their gender, in line with international human rights laws and standards.”
The court’s ruling is in line with a 2015 report from the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The report recommended that legal gender recognition should be based on self-determination and that it should be a simple administrative process.
The commissioner also said legal gender recognition should be accessible, cost free, and should not require trans people to undergo abusive medical and legal requirements.
Taiwan is far from the only country that has required trans people to have their reproductive organs removed in order to be legally recognised in their correct gender – in fact, numerous states continue to uphold such requirements, despite backlash from human rights groups.
In 2019, Japan’s Supreme Court upheld a policy requiring trans people to have their reproductive organs removed.
Sweden imposed a similar policy until 2012. In 2017, the government announced that it would offer compensation to those who underwent forced sterilisation.
Roberto Navarro has been a dancer since he was 17. Jazz became his passion and he fell in love with classical dancing after he took many classes. And he began to teach four years later.
“I’m so happy when I teach dancing to my girls because they bring me so much joy, I feel like I help my girls to become better women, without noticing I’m some kind of a therapist,” Navarro told the Washington Blade.
He discovered the discipline of dancing in heels in 2014, which made him connect and explore more with his sexuality. He did, however, suffer a lot of bullying because of it.
Navarro — a 33-year-old gay man who is originally from Sahuayo de Morelos in Michoacán state — currently owns a dance salon. Navarro said he started to become an entrepreneur, but it hasn’t been easy because of the pandemic.
He was diagnosed with HIV in 2016. Navarro suffered from depression for several months after he learned his status.
“I woke up very overwhelmed in the morning thinking that I had to go to the hospital to make a long line of patients; to have blood drawn for fast screening tests,” he said. “We arrived at 7 in the morning and left until 1 in the afternoon.”
Navarro has been receiving treatment for almost five years, and he is still dancing.
“Subsequently, I went to my consultations every three or six months depending on my results,” he stated. “By the third month I was undetectable.”
Navarro started with Atripla, an antiretroviral drug he received through Mexico’s Seguro Popular, and he was undetectable a month later.
A shortage of Atripla forced a change to Biktarby after President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2019 scrapped Seguro Popular and created the Health Institute for Wellbeing (INSABI). The pharmaceutical company Gilead has said there are many counterfeit versions of the drug on the market.
Seguro Popular in 2018 had almost 52 million beneficiaries. The National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (CONEVAL) said INSABI at the end of 2020 had more than 34 million beneficiaries.
Antiretroviral drugs have been available in Mexico since 2003, although the Mexican health system is divided into various subsystems based on where one works.
Institute of Social Security and Services for State Workers (ISSSTE)
Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMS)
INSABI (Health Institute for Wellbeing) that was previously known as the Seguro Popular
They vary in the time it takes to receive medication and the time for CD4 viral load tests. The availability of appointments with infectious disease specialists varies in each of the three public health systems.
People with INSABI will take longer to get tests and have access to doctors. It must also be recognized that everyone, in theory, has the possibility of accessing medicines, but it also depends on the states in which they live.
From Seguro Popular to INSABI
The number of people without access to healthcare in Mexico rose from 20 million to almost 36 million between 2018-2020. INSABI, more than a year after its creation, still does not completely cover the same amount as its predecessor.
INSABI is an independent agency through the Ministry of Health that aims to “provide and ensure the free provision of health services, medicines and other inputs associated with people without social security.” The General Health Law says it was to replace Seguro Popular, which was in place from 2004-2019.
“The situation for treatment right now, it’s quite complex, particularly because there have been many changes in the health department of Mexico, and this has to do with the fact that in 2003 when the Seguro Popular was established; there was an increase to comprehensive care for people living with HIV and resources for prevention strategies which are mainly handled through civil society organizations that obtained money from the government.” stated Ricardo Baruch, who has worked at the International Family Planning Federation for almost 15 years.
López,, who took office in 2018, sought to eliminate Seguro Popular, which was the mechanism by which access to antiretroviral drugs were given to most people living with HIV in the states with greater vulnerability. This change was done in theory to expand access for everyone, but the opposite happened.
There is less access due to the modification of purchasing mechanisms and a huge shortage throughout the country. Baruch says this situation has caused a treatment crisis across Mexico.
“The truth is that the Seguro Popular helped me a lot to have my treatments on time, what I do not like is that there is not enough staff to attend all the patients that we are waiting for our consultations,” said Erick Vasquez, a person who learned in February he is living with HIV.
Vasquez, 34, is an artist who works in Guadalajara and Playa del Carmen.
Vasquez did not have health insurance like other people through IMS. He obtained access to Seguro Popular through an organization that supports people with HIV, but he has to wait until October for his first appointment.
Vasquez, who has a very low viral load, in March began a job through which he obtained IMS. He had access to his treatments through it.
He received three months worth of Biktarvy at the end of June; one prescription for each month. He said the drug is not difficult to obtain.
“I have not had any problem with the medication, it is not difficult to get it when you are on the insurance, but there is still a long time left until October,” said Vasquez.
The cost of the antiretroviral treatment in Mexico is approximately $650 per month, and one bottle has only 30 pills.
“I have not had side effects, I have not had nausea, I don’t vomit, I take a pill daily, it is one every 24 hours,” Vasquez said. “I feel very well and I hope very soon to be undetectable.”
Infrastructure over health
Prevention resources were eliminated, and health resources today are used to finance the Felipe Ángeles International Airport at the Santa Lucía military base in Zumpango in Mexico state, a new refinery, the Mayan train and other major infrastructure projects. And this causes many people who want to access treatment not to receive them. It takes much
The cost of the work, including the land connected with the Mexico City International Airport and various military facilities, is set at 82,136,100,000 Mexican pesos and there are provisions to serve 19.5 million passengers the first year of operations, according to a report from the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA).
There are, on the other hand, far fewer HIV tests and this shortage has led to a much higher arrival of late-stage HIV cases and even AIDS in hospitals. This trend is particularly serious among transgender women and men who have sex with men.
“Here in Mexico we concentrate the HIV pandemic, and that we are at a time when this issue of shortages has not stabilized, that there is already more clarity in purchases, but it is well known that all these changes in health systems continue for a year over the years they cause the situation to be increasingly fragile and in the matter of migrants that previously there was certainty so that they could access medicines through the Seguro Popular, now there is a legal limbo for which in some states it depends: on the states, the clinic or social worker; whether or not they give you medications,” said Baruch.
“If you are not a resident or a national here in Mexico, this is a matter won for people in transit seeking political asylum or who had stayed in Mexico,” he added.
Migrants lack access to HIV treatment
Mexico is located between the three regions with the world’s highest rates of HIV: the Caribbean, Central America, and the U.S. This has been used as a foundation for a culture of hatred against migrants, according to Siobhan McManus, a biologist, philosopher, and researcher at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Sciences and Humanities of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
The lack of opportunities, violence and climate change that forces people whose livelihoods depend on agriculture to abandon their homes prompts migration from Central America.
Most migrants — LGBTQ or otherwise — experience violence once they arrive in Mexico.
Chiapas and other states have created an extensive network of clinics known by the Spanish acronym CAPASITS (Centro Ambulatorio para la Prevención y Atención en SIDA e Infecciones de Transmisión Sexual) that are specific HIV and STD units in major towns. They are often within close proximity to most people’s homes.
Sonora and Chihuahua states, which border the U.S., often have such clinics in only one or two cities. This lack of access means people will have to travel up to six hours to access these treatments.
People who have already been receiving treatment for a long time were previously given up to three months of treatment. They now must travel every month to receive their medications because of the shortages.
PrEP available in Mexico
The shortage of medical drugs for people who already live with HIV is a current issue for the Mexican government, but they have made free PrEP available for those who want to prevent themselves from the virus.
Ivan Plascencia, a 24-years old, who lives in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state , has been using PrEP for several years since he became sexually active and he never had any complaints about the medication. Plascencia instead recommends his close friends to take advantage of this prevention drug that is available in one of the CAPASITS where he lives.
Post-pandemic screening tests
There are an estimated 260,000 people in Mexico who are living with HIV. Upwards of 80 percent of them knew their status before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The number of new cases that were detected in 2020 were 60 percent less than the previous year, but this figure does not mean HIV rates have decreased.
In Jalisco, which is one of Mexico’s most populous states with upwards of 8 million people, there was a 40 percent increase in positive cases in 2020 compared to 2019. This increase has put a strain on service providers.
In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s meeting of world leaders, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country would not cede ground on policies that have caused the European Union to impose financial penalties and start legal proceedings against it over violations of the bloc’s values.
Topping the list of contentious government policies: a controversial Hungarian law that the EU says violates the fundamental rights of LGBT people.
That led the EU’s executive commission to delay billions in economic recovery funds earmarked for Hungary — a move Szijjarto called “a purely political decision” and “blackmail.” The law, he says, is meant to protect children from pedophiles and ”homosexual propaganda.”
Japan is about to get a new prime minister – and two candidates in particular have the potential to transform LGBT+ rights, including same-sex marriage.
After the current Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga decided to step down a year into his term, his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is set to choose a successor on Wednesday (29 September).
The election is a “historic moment” for Japan – not just because two of the four candidates are women, but also because two candidates support same-sex marriage.
Alexander Dmitrenko is a co-founder and co-chair of Lawyers for LGBT & Allies Network (LLAN) and a counsel at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Tokyo. He told PinkNews that the current “frontrunners” for the election are Fumio Kishida, former foreign minister, and Taro Kono, the cabinet minister in charge of vaccinations.
Kono’s was the first voice from within the LDP in support of same-sex marriage, Dmitrenko explained, and a “fairly important” one at that.
Even before the leadership race, Kono made headlines in Japan after he said: “I will support marriage equality.”
“The LDP is not the most progressive of parties, but it has a very diverse membership,” Dmitrenko told PinkNews. “For Kono to come out during the leadership race and to express support for marriage equality is, to my mind, very leadership like.”
He said that Kono is a “very viable candidate” with “a lot of junior members of the party supporting him”, and that he is “very well-liked” within Japanese society.
Sanae Takaichi and Seiko Noda are the first women in over a decade to seek leadership of the LDP.
Noda has said that she supports same-sex marriage and in a recent campaign speech, she said that she wants to see more LGBT+ people “take centre stage” in society.
“I seek to create a society of diversity by having people who have not been given main roles in society, including children, women, the disabled and LGBTQ people, take centre stage,” Noda explained, according to ABC News.
However, Dmitrenko told PinkNews that Noda is probably the “least favourite to win” as other candidates, like Kono, have more backing within the party.
According to Dmitrenko, Takaichi has not come out openly opposing same-sex marriage but instead reiterated that the “current status of the law of the land” is that LGBT+ can’t marry.
“And that was the answer which isn’t really an answer.”
Party members will vote for the new leader and prime minister, and polling has been favouring former foreign minister Kishida.
Dmitrenko said that Kishida “hasn’t made up his mind” on same-sex marriage, saying he would “prefer to hear various opinions on the issue”.
Currently, Japan’s constitution defines marriage as based on the “mutual consent of both sexes”.
But in a landmark ruling earlier this year, a district court in the Sapporo district said that blocking same-sex marriage is “unconstitutional”.
The judgement, however, was seen as largely symbolic.
Germany will welcome its first-ever trans MPs to the Bundestag after a federal election that saw the centre-left SDP narrowly beat the centre-right CDU.
According to preliminary results on Monday morning (27 September), the SPD and its chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz won 25.7 per cent of the vote.
Germany’s Green Party had its best-ever result in a national poll, 14.8 per cent, and Scholz believes he has a mandate to for a coalition with the Greens and liberal politicians, which would bring to an end 16 years of centre-right rule.
In another historic first, two transgender Green MPs were elected to the Bundestag – Tessa Ganserer and Nyke Slawik.
Ganserer, 44, who has been a member of parliament for Nuremberg North since 2013, came out as a trans woman in 2019. She became the the first out transgender person to sit in a regional or national parliament in Germany, and this is the first election she has run since coming out.
When she came out, Ganserer used her own experience of transition to declare the need for Germany to update the 1980 Transsexual Act, which provides a convoluted process for trans people to change their legal name and gender.
She said at the time: “Gender identity is a human right… in future it should be possible for a person to apply to change their gender recorded at birth.”
On Monday, she wrote on Twitter: “I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the trust shown by the voters.
“I’m still overwhelmed, but I’m really looking forward to my new job in Berlin!
“My congratulations too Nyke Slawik. #QueerRepresentationMatters.”
For Nyke Slawik, who is just 27 years old, this will be her first term as an MP for the Leverkusen, Cologne IV constituency.
She unsuccessfully ran for parliament in 2017, and for the European parliament in 2019.
According to Queer.de, Slawik ran in this year’s election with the hope of giving young people a voice in the Bundestag, and is determined to use her position to fight the climate crisis and increase diversity in Germany’s parliament as a trans lawmaker.
In a speech at the Green Party congress in April, she said: “Every time has its fighters. Those of the climate protectors. Those of the Greens. And those of the colorful. This is our time!”
Cheers rang out, hugs were exchanged and rainbow-colored flags waved overhead across Switzerland as the Swiss resoundingly voted to allow same-sex couples to marry, final results of a nationwide referendum showed Sunday.
Official results showed the measure passed with 64.1 percent of the vote while more than half of all voters approved in each of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, or states. The vote — years in the making — is set to bring the Alpine nation into line with many others in Western Europe and wraps up an often tense campaign between rival sides.
Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said on Twitter that the government would implement the decision quickly and, under current plans, the new rules can take effect on July 1.
Switzerland’s parliament and the governing Federal Council — on which she sits — had supported the “Marriage for All” measure, which marks a key step for greater rights for gays and lesbians in Switzerland. The country has authorized same-sex civil partnerships since 2007.
“With this, all couples will in the future be treated equally before the law: all can enter into a civil marriage, with the same rights and obligations,” Keller-Sutter wrote.
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Passage is set to put same-sex partners on an equal legal footing with heterosexual couples by allowing them to adopt children and facilitating citizenship for same-sex spouses. It will also permit lesbian couples to utilize regulated sperm donation.
“This is a historic day for us and for Switzerland, this is a great step forward, something we have been waiting for for years,” said Laura Russo, co-president of the Geneva Federation of LGBT Associations, at a gathering of joyous supporters of the measure along a Geneva pedestrian street. “This initiative was begun in 2013; we had to wait 8 years for the vote to happen — and here, this is a big ‘Yes.’”
Opponents believe that replacing civil partnerships with full marriage rights would undermine families based on a union between a man and a woman.
Benjamin Roduit of the Christian Democratic People’s Party, which spearheaded the effort to stop same-sex marriage, claimed at least some success in raising awareness about his party’s positions despite the defeat at the ballot box.
“On our side we have tried to draw attention to the central problem, the one of children and medically assisted procreation,” he said. “On that point, I think we have succeeded in raising awareness among the Swiss people and we will still be here when other steps will be proposed.”
The campaign has been rife with allegations of unfair tactics, with the opposing sides decrying the ripping down of posters, LGBT hotlines getting flooded with complaints, hostile emails, shouted insults against campaigners and efforts to silence opposing views.
Switzerland, which has a population of 8.5 million, is traditionally conservative and only extended the right to vote to all women in the country in 1990.
Most countries in Western Europe already recognize same-sex marriage, while most of those in Central and Eastern Europe don’t permit wedlock between two men or two women.
The UK has been singled out for its “baseless and concerning” anti-trans rhetoric in a damning report on rising hate against LGBT+ people in Europe.
The extensive report was published by the Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights organisation, on Tuesday (21 September).
It describes “a marked increase” in anti-LGBT+ hate speech and hate crime and condemns “with particular force the extensive and often virulent attacks” on LGBT+ rights in the UK, which is named alongside Hungary, Poland, Turkey and the Russian Federation.
The council notes that these attacks “deliberately mis-characterise the fight for the equality of LGBTI people as so-called ‘gender ideology’ and seek to stifle the identities and realities of all those who challenge the social constructs that perpetuate gender inequalities and gender-based violence in our societies.
“These attacks are harmful to women as well as LGBTI people,” it adds.
The UK is specifically mentioned throughout the report, which makes particular reference to the growing problem of anti-LGBT+ hate speech on social media.
The 18-page report dedicates an entire, shameful section to the UK’s rise in anti-trans rhetoric, noting with concern how it often questions the very existence of gender as a category of protection under international human rights law.
This dangerous discourse has been “gaining baseless and concerning credibility” at the expense of trans people’s civil liberties and women’s and children’s rights, it warns.
“At the IDAHOT Forum 2021, minister for women and equalities [Liz Truss] stated, in contradiction with international human rights standards with respect to the rights of trans people: ‘We do not believe in self-identification.’
“Such rhetoric – which denies trans identities – is being used to roll back the rights of trans and non-binary people and is contributing to growing human rights problems.”
The report notes that UK hate crime statistics show a sharp increase in transphobic crimes since 2015, though though only 1 in 7 victims report them, and many trans people now fear for their safety.
“There is intense and ongoing social, political and legal debate about what constitutes harmful discourse when it comes to trans people and their rights,” it continues, “and arguments defending freedom of expression have been – and are still being – used as a tool to justify transphobic rhetoric, further penalising and harming already marginalised trans people and communities.
“It is also becoming increasingly difficult for individuals and organisations to publicly affirm young trans people without being subject to hostility and disproportionate questioning from wider society.
“The ‘gender-critical’ movement, which wrongly portrays trans rights as posing a particular threat to cisgender women and girls, has played a significant role in this process.”
The council also identifies several “vitriolic media campaigns” in which trans women have been “vilified and misrepresented” and says that trans healthcare is also being “erroneously portrayed” as a form of LGB conversion therapy.
Despite this concerning track record, the UK government plans to encourage other countries to tackle LGBT+ inequality at its first global LGBT conference, ‘Safe to Be Me,’ next year.
The event promises to bring together elected officials, policy makers, and the international LGBT+ community to “protect and promote” the rights of LGBT+ people around the world.
PinkNews has reached out to Liz Truss’ office for comment.
United States Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield is among those who participated in a Wednesday event on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly that highlighted efforts to decriminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations.
Thomas-Greenfield in her remarks during the largely virtual U.N. LGBTI Core Group event noted consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in more than 70 countries.
“For millions of people it is illegal for them to be who they are, to love who they love. We need to repeal and eliminate these laws,” she said. “For our part, the United States is using our diplomacy, our foreign assistance and every tool we have to protect human rights, empower civil society and support local LGBTQI movements.”
The U.S. is one of 35 countries that are members of the Core Group.
Wednesday’s event also highlighted efforts to decriminalize transgender people and repeal laws that specifically target them.
“We need more countries to join this committed group,” said Thomas-Greenfield. “Together, let’s do everything we can to protect human rights and promote equality for all.”
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo; Nepalese Ambassador to the U.N. Amrit Bahadur Rai; New Zealand Ambassador to the U.N. Craig Hawke; Australian Permanent U.N. Representative Mitch Fifield; Brazilian Ambassador to the U.N. Rolando Costa Filho; Canadian Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Keith Rae; Assistant U.N. Secretary General for Strategic Coordination Volker Türk; Argentine Foreign Affairs Minister Santiago Cafiero; Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Tom de Bruijn; Japanese Foreign Minister Jun Shimmi; Norwegian Foreign Affairs Minister Ine Eriksen Soreide; Salvadoran Foreign Affairs Minister Alexandra Hill Tinoco; Costa Rican Vice Multicultural Affairs Minister Christian Guillermet-Fernández; Finnish Foreign Affairs Ministry Johanna Sumuvuori; Nick Herbert of the British House of Lords; European Union Equality Commissioner Helena Dalli; Swedish Foreign Affairs Minister Ann Linde; Icelandic Foreign Affairs Minister Gudlaugur Thór Thórdarson; Maltese Equality, Research, Innovation and the Coordination of Post COVID-19 Strategy Minister Owen Bonnici; Mexican Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights Undersecretary Martha Delgado; Italian Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Benedetto Della Vedova; Chilean Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Carolina Valdivia; German MP Michael Roth; Irish State for Overseas Development Aid and Diaspora Minister Colm Brophy and Danish Development and Nordic Cooperation Minister Flemming Møller Mortensen participated in the event that Reuters U.N. Bureau Chief Michelle Nichols emceed.
Acting OutRight Action International Executive Director Maria Sjödin and activists from Bhutan, Botswana, Guyana, Mozambique, Angola, Panamá and India took part. Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the independent U.N. expert on LGBTQ issues, and Nikkie de Jager, a Dutch U.N. goodwill ambassador known as NikkieTutorials who is trans, also participated.
“Decriminalization is a very basic demand,” said Sjödin. “Given how many countries have these laws on the books, it is still a priority.”
Herbert, who is British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s LGBTQ envoy, noted consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in 35 of the Commonwealth’s 54 countries. Herbert also announced the U.K. will give an additional $2.75 million to “support LGBT+ individuals in Commonwealth countries, including to those seeking to address outdated legislation that discriminates against women, girls and LGBT+ individuals.”
“We are clear that tackling discrimination is only one part of the issue,” said Herbert. “We must encourage countries as well to put in place laws that protect their LGBTI citizens going forward.”
President Biden in February signed a memorandum that committed the U.S. to promote LGBTQ rights abroad. The decriminalization of consensual same-sex sexual relation is one of the White House’s five global LGBTQ rights priorities.
A gay Guatemalan congressman who is a vocal critic of his country’s president and corruption says he is afraid for his life.
“I am scared of what may happen with so much persecution against me,” Aldo Dávila told the Washington Blade on Sept. 10 during an interview at a Guatemala City hotel. “I am scared for my life, for my partner, for my family and for my team.”
Dávila — a member of the Winaq movement, a leftist party founded by Rigoberta Menchú, an indigenous human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner — in 2019 became the first openly gay man elected to Guatemala’s congress. Dávila, who also lives with HIV, had previously been the executive director of Asociación Gente Positiva, a Guatemala City-based HIV/AIDS service organization.
Three men on April 19 approached his vehicle while it was stopped at a traffic light near Guatemala’s National Library and tried to rob him.
One of Dávila’s bodyguards who was driving shot one of the men. The other two men fled the scene before passersby and police officers arrived.
Dávila was not injured, but he later said in a Facebook post that he is “thankful for life.” Dávila told the Blade that Guatemalan authorities have not thoroughly investigated the attack.
“I requested an armored car after the attack, but I have not received it yet,” said Dávila, who arrived at the hotel with two female police officers who sat in the lobby while he spoke with the Blade. “This has not been resolved, even though it was in April. It is very complicated.”
Dávila said Culture Minister Felipe Aguilar, Congress President Allan Rodríguez and other supporters of President Alejandro Giammattei have lodged nine formal complaints against him after he publicly criticized the government over a variety of issues that include its response to the pandemic.
“It has been a systematic attack against me,” said Dávila.
Dávila told the Blade that he and his partner installed cameras in their apartment after someone killed their dog. Dávila also said he continues to receive death threats online and at his home.
“We are going to kill you, we are going to shut you up,” said Dávila, referring to the type of threats he says he receives.
“They send me little messages, I am clearly making those who are corrupt very uncomfortable,” added Dávila.
Prominent transgender activist murdered in June
Discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity remains commonplace in Guatemala.
Dávila told the Blade that 21 LGBTQ people have been reported killed in Guatemala so far in 2021, including one person who was stoned to death.
Andrea González, executive director of Organización Trans Reinas de la Noche, a trans advocacy group, was shot to death in Guatemala City on June 11, days after Vice President Kamala Harris visited the country. The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power both condemned González’s murder, but Dávila told the Blade there has been “no investigation.”
“It’s one more case about which to forget, unfortunately,” said Dávila.
Dávila also noted he has met with officials who include representatives of the National Civil Police, the Public Ministry and the National Institute for Forensic Sciences “to ask what they are doing” to combat anti-LGBTQ violence in the country.
“This is serious,” he said.
‘People don’t migrate because they want to’
Menchú, Visibles Executive Director Daniel Villatoro and Ingrid Gamboa of the Association of Garifuna Women Living with HIV/AIDS are among the 18 members of Guatemalan civil society who participated in the roundtable with Harris while she was in the country. The U.S. vice president met with Giammattei before the event.
Harris has previously acknowledged that violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity is among the “root causes” of migration from Guatemala and other Central American countries. Harris and other Biden administration officials have also told migrants not to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“People migrate because states don’t have the capacity to respond to the most basic needs,” said Dávila. “People don’t migrate because they want to. People don’t migrate because (they say) today I am going to go to the United States because I have nothing to do. They don’t go on vacation. They go in search of health, work, security and economic resources to be able to sustain themselves.”
“Guatemala has not had the capacity to retain Guatemalans because it doesn’t offer them the minimum to be able to live,” he added.
Dávila described Harris’ visit to Guatemala as “important.”
He said Guatemalans are “eternally grateful for the” COVID-19 vaccines the U.S. has donated to the country. Dávila added he would like Washington to “take a look at the human rights violations that are happening in” the country and further sanction those who are responsible for them.
Giammattei earlier this year named his chief of staff to Guatemala’s Constitutional Court.
The U.S. has granted asylum to former Attorney General Thelma Aldana, who the Constitutional Court refused to allow to run for president in 2019 after prosecutors alleged she embezzled money from a building purchase. The Biden administration in July stopped working with current Attorney General Consuelo Porras’ office after it fired Juan Francisco Sandoval, a leading anti-corruption prosecutor who subsequently fled the country.
The U.S. has imposed travel bans on a number of Guatemalan officials, but Dávila said these sanctions are not effective.
“We want clearer, more drastic sanctions,” he said. “The U.S. has been a historical ally for Guatemala, not just since yesterday, not from five years ago … it has been economically and financially supporting this country for a long time. The United States can impose more drastic sanctions against the government so the government stops being corrupt, so the government does not fight against migration.”
Dávila told the Blade he has not decided whether he will run for a second term in 2023.
Dávila said he has had “some problems” with the Winaq movement over funding for hospitals during the pandemic, but he remains a member. Dávila told the Blade he has received invitations to join other political parties.
“I am thinking about it and evaluating all the scenarios,” he said.
Dávila added he remains “very proud to be part of the opposition in the history of this country.”
The Madrid prosecutor’s office opened an investigation on Monday after a crowd of about 200 people sporting Nazi paraphernalia marched in the Spanish capital’s gay-friendly neighbourhood of Chueca on Saturday shouting offensive anti-LGBT slogans.
The protesters shouted “Out of our neighbourhood” and “Get out of Madrid” prefaced by derogatory words for gay people, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Homophobic hate crimes have been in the headlines in Spain since a man was beaten to death in July over his sexual orientation. The government said this month it would create specialised groups within the Interior Ministry and the police force to prevent hate crimes and support victims.
Around 200 people gathered on Saturday in the gay-friendly neighborhood of Chueca, known as the center of Spain’s annual Pride celebrations, where they shouted insults such as “get fags out of our neighborhood” and “get those sidosos [AIDS-ridden people] out of Madrid,” as they marched toward the city’s landmark Puerta del Sol square.
During the two-hour demonstration, the group set off flares, carried signs with far-right symbols and expressed their contempt for unaccompanied migrant minors and migrants more broadly. As well as the homophobic chants, demonstrators yelled “Here are the nationalists,” a reference to those who supported dictator Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
The participants – who were escorted by riot police and several National Police vans – also waved Spanish flags and symbols of Juventud Nacional (National Youth), an organization linked to the far-right party España 2000 (Spain 2000).