Michael Fox, Caracas
Thousands of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people marched in this year's GLBT Pride parade in Caracas on July 2. This marks the sixth year in a row that Venezuela has held a gay pride parade.
The colorful and lively parade, which marked the closing event of a month of GLBT activities, ran from Parque del Este in the eastern side of the city through the affluent municipality of Chacao and ended at Plaza Venezuela with jubilant music, dance and speakers. Marchers expressed their gratification for the extended route, which is at least twice as long as past years, and which the marchers had to struggle to obtain.
The GLBT Pride parade was organized by the Lambda Alliance in coordination with a number of other organisations including Consultants for Education and Health Venezuela (ASES — an HIV care group), Divas de Venezuela and the National Youth Institute.
The march was unusually apolitical for Venezuela's polarized climate, where it is common for two marches to be held on the same day for the same issue: one against and one in support of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Most participants laughed when asked whether the organizers ever considered holding two separate marches. University student Gonzalez verified that there are many groups in the Venezuelan gay community: some in support, some against and some entirely neutral to Chavez. But traditionally, since the first AIDS cases in the 1980s, the gay movement in Venezuela has been fairly apolitical.
Although there is no exclusive protection for GLBT rights in the Venezuelan constitution, most participants in the march didn't express any doubt as to the fact that tolerance and respect for the GLBT community in Venezuela is improving.
"We now have the support from the Mayor [Juan] Barreto and the mayor from the municipality of Chacao", said Daniel Romero, gay health promoter with the ASES Group. "There is still a lot of discrimination, but things are a bit freer. Here in Caracas things are pretty well liberated. There's not as much discrimination as before ... and each year the level of participation in the march has increased."
The first gay pride march was held in 2000, one year after Chavez took office, and attended by 100. Participants insisted that their numbers have increased every year since.
Regardless, it appears that there is still a long way to go. Kelly Komenda is a queer activist from the United States who has been studying social movement organising with her partner in Venezuela for the past six months. Although she recognises that Venezuela has come a long way, she admits that she expected more from those who consider themselves to be "revolutionaries".
"Neither of us could imagine being publicly out in the same way as in the States ... it was a safety factor that we chose to closet ourselves and we've had a lot of hard times being around self-proclaimed revolutionaries who are really discriminatory ... to us and even how they pick people out in the street", she said just before the start of the march.
Various HIV and AIDS organisations also participated in the march. Although Venezuela is one of only three countries in Latin America that provides HIV and AIDS sufferers with free treatment and medicine, HIV is still a huge problem in Venezuela, where there is a lack of sexual and health education. According to Romero from ASES, 40,000 Venezuelans are infected in the country and about 70% of those who are infected don't even know it.
Venezuela's "gay movement" is currently pushing for the passage of same-sex marriage legislation in the National Assembly.
[Abridged from <http://venezuelanalysis.com>.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 19, 2006.
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