It is no exaggeration to say that working for the rights of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans) population in Venezuela today is like plowing in the sea. "Nobody. Neither Maduro's government nor the opposition is interested in talking about it. The political leadership of either side is dedicated to solving the political, economic and social crises. The rights of the LGBT population is the last thing you think about for a very basic reason: there is fear," says Quiteria Franco, researcher and director of the Affirmative Union of Venezuela, a civil association that watches over the LGBT population.
The activist, who is part of the UN Women in Latin America civil society advisory group, takes away romanticism from the emergence of the figure of the president of the Venezuelan Parliament, Juan Guaidó. "Although he is part of a party (Voluntad Popular) that in its statutes says that rights must be governed for all people, he has not publicly expressed any support for this cause. And he doesn't do it because he runs the risk of losing followers; moreover, in his speeches he has shown himself to be Catholic.
However, acknowledges Franco, Guaidó is a key card so that, in the event of a change of government in Venezuela, "the rights that have been denied for decades to the LGBT population, long before achieving the recognition that he has today, he signed an initiative for the legalization of egalitarian marriage. The discussion has been stalled in the Supreme Court for 20 years.
Tamara Adrián, trans woman and deputy of the Venezuelan National Assembly, is one of the victims of the bloody train crash between the Assembly and the Supreme Court of Justice. "Although there are processes that can be solved in an hour, I have been waiting 14 years for the Supreme Court of Justice to recognize my identity. They don't decide anything. It's a case of transphobia by omission," he says in dialogue with El Espectador.
"The LGBT population, like all other vulnerable populations in Venezuela, goes through disproportionately complex moments because of the crisis. There are people living with HIV and for the last two years they have not received retrovirals on a continuous basis. There are organizations that are documenting the issue of HIV and have found that AIDS is reaching levels similar to those we had in the 1980s.
According to the Vienna-based Observatory of Trans Murdered People, 115 hate crimes have been committed against the LGBT community in Venezuela in the last ten years. However, warns Tamara Adrian, the figure may be higher "because these murders are rarely reported and rarely investigated.
The fact that the Supreme Court of Justice does not recognize the union of same-sex couples aggravates the situation, including in the area of food. "Same sex couples, since they are not considered families, are excluded from the subsidized food of the so-called CLAP bags," which is the Venezuelan government's parallel food distribution system.
"In these conditions he had proposed a partial reform of the organic law of civil registry, to recognize equal civil marriage, the rights of the couple and the identity of trans persons. The issue did not prosper because the legislative function is paralyzed.
In view of the growing violence against the LGBT population, in 2012 Quiteria Franco, in a hearing before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, denounced that the government of Nicolás Maduro assumed homophobia as a mechanism of political repression. "The IACHR asked the government to immediately stop hate speeches against the LGBT population. Maduro's response was to call me a coup plotter and a capitalist. In 2016 a national human rights plan was invented, but nothing they said was executed.
Tamara Adrián explains that she decided to join politics when she identified what, in her opinion, was a Hugo Chávez trap. "In his speech, his policies were inclusive of the LGBT population, but in practice they carried out extreme right-wing actions that he questioned so much.
The matter is aggravated. In addition to the current problems, activists defending the rights of this vulnerable population are also leaving the country. "We have had to focus on the consequences of the crisis and put aside political advocacy to address social issues of survival," admits Quiteria Franco.