Post #1309

A lot of people have told me that as a leftist woman, I shouldn’t write or even care about these things. Many think that gender is an imperialist construct, an ideology being imposed on the Global South as if we were idiots. What is actually being imposed is the fascist anti-rights movement that is also against women’s sexual and reproductive rights. Truth is, the LGBTQI+ community has always existed and will continue to exist and the fight for its rights in Venezuela began decades ago. It precedes any “gender ideology” fiction. Another common complaint is, “Why focus on this? It doesn’t have any impact on the world and its problems.” Except it does. Everybody benefits from a society that is more accepting and less discriminating. When we affirm the rights of a minority, such as the LGBTQI+ community, we open the path for every other minority group. When women and black people earned political and economic rights, everybody won because we became more democratic, even if there’s still a lot to do regarding racism and gender inequality. You can think about LGBTQI+ inclusion the same way as a building that has access for people with different disabilities. It won’t affect you or make you disabled, but it will positively affect a bunch of other people. Everyone gets to enter the building with their humanity intact. More importantly, legislating for queer people to have the same rights as everybody else would reduce homophobia and violence against this community, which is a huge problem right now. According to the Venezuelan Observatory of LGBTIQ+ Violence, last year there were 97 cases of violence, including 11 murders. The aggressors were mostly heterosexual men, civilians, but also state security officers. The crimes happened everywhere: public parks, workplaces, restaurants, radio stations… anywhere where everyday life occurs. https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/15822