海角大神

鈥� A version of this post ran on the Latin America Working Group聽. The views expressed are the author's own.

Jos茅 鈥淧epe鈥� Palacios, a leading Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) activist from Honduras, recently visited the United States at the invitation of the Honduras Solidarity Network and the聽. Pepe is a founding member of the聽, created in the wake of the June 2009 coup d鈥櫭﹖at in Honduras that replaced the democratically elected government.聽 He is also a program officer at the Swedish aid agency Diakonia. 聽At events in Washington, DC that the Latin America Working Group helped arrange,聽Pepe spoke about the violence the LGBT community has faced after the coup and what they are doing to organize for change...

鈥淛une 28, 2009 we had a coup d鈥櫭﹖at. It is a really important date for the LGBT community of Honduras. June 28, 1969 was Stonewall. 40 years later we had the coup d鈥櫭﹖at and for us, the coup was our Stonewall. Prior to that date, we didn鈥檛 have a movement at all. But, on that date, we joined all the social movements in our country. We had a fight in common: we wanted democracy.

鈥淚t was really hard working together; there are 13 LGBT organizations. Before the coup, it was almost impossible to have even 2 LGBT organizations seated at the same table. There was a lot of transphobia and lesbophobia; we were just a 鈥楪鈥� organization. We called it LGBT but in reality it was not. Now, we have a common agenda. Our biggest allies are the feminists, union workers, indigenous organizations, afro-Hondurans, youth organizations, campesinos and even religious organizations, all of whom were against the coup.

鈥淗onduran society is very conservative; there is a lot of homophobia. Being part of the resistance front doesn鈥檛 make you immune to homophobia immediately. But at least in this movement, the people are very supportive. Maybe it is because we have the same goal as them, but every time we accompany the resistance front, the people are very respectful. Others tolerate us, but they respect us. Between tolerance and respect, I prefer being respected.

鈥淥ne of the things that has changed since the coup is that there is a lot of hate. In only 7 months after the coup, 26 LGBT persons were killed. In 2008, we only had 4 killed. We went from 4 to 26; that鈥檚 a big jump. From 1994-2009, we had 20 LGBT murders. After the coup, we have had 90. It went from being 1 per year to 2 per month. Why? We were living in a bubble before and if you鈥檙e invisible, you鈥檙e harmless. Since that day, the LGBT community became visible because we walked the streets protesting against the coup. Now we鈥檙e thechusma.

鈥淭he American embassy and State Department sent FBI agents to support the police and prosecutors in their investigations of these murders. Now, 18 of the 90 cases are under investigation with 2 people sentenced. The investigations have progressed because of the involvement of the FBI agents. I don鈥檛 see a possibility that the current government improves the legal system. If it wasn鈥檛 for the pressure of the American embassy and State Department, they wouldn鈥檛 do anything at all to investigate. The government excuse is that there are lots of murders occurring so why should they have to focus on these LGBT murders in particular. The government is investigating now not because they want to but because of international pressure.

鈥淚n 2011, the resistance movement decided to create a political arm in order to participate in general elections (). We had two pre-candidates for Congress. One, Erick Martinez Avila, was nominated in April and on May 7, 2012 he was murdered. Traditionally, we have had two parties and now we have a third, and for the first time they will have real competition in an election. What I want to do here is to raise awareness because maybe many of you didn鈥檛 have any information on what鈥檚 happening in Honduras with the LGBT organizations. Also we need to have the support of human rights organizations to observe the electoral process in order to ensure it will be transparent.

鈥淚 would never ever leave my country because if I do that, I鈥檓 safe but others will still face threats. In every revolution there will be casualties, but we know we can鈥檛 stop. The positive thing is that we became visible and now we really are a movement, not a social club, not an NGO. We鈥檙e part of a movement that fights for the rights of everyone.鈥�

-聽Jordan Baber is an LAWG intern.