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On September 18, in Guatemala, a group of deputies led by Rodrigo Pellecer of the Elefante legislative bloc presented a bill that seeks to eliminate classroom lessons and textbook content regarding so-called “gender ideology” and limit sex education in schools. Their main argument, they asserted, was to protect parents’ rights to guide their children’s sexual education and values.
“This bill has only one purpose, and that is to remove from education everything that corresponds to gender ideology so that our children are not being taught that it is something normal or something that is correct,” stated Pellecer, without specifying what ideology he meant, but in a clear reference to the existence of queer and trans people.
This is an old tune in Congress. The earlier “Law for the Protection of Life and Family,” approved in March 2022, would have increased criminal sentences for abortion, outlawed sex ed, and declared sexual diversity abnormal. But it was quickly vetoed, under public backlash, even by the Alejandro Giammattei administration — which billed itself as Christian-conservative, declaring Guatemala the “pro-life capital of Iberoamerica.”
These attitudes also extend to the judiciary: In late June, two days before the LGBTQ+ Pride march, the Constitutional Court granted an injunction allowing the march (which every year obtains requisite permits) but ordering the president and overseers of the Police to prevent exposure to children — something that did not and could not happen in a public procession through downtown Guatemala City.
Sabrina Martínez, coordinator of the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Visibles, called the high court’s ruling “deeply stigmatizing.” As for President Bernardo Arévalo —who purports to be a progressive, but has said he will not seek to legalize same-sex marriage— she called the administration’s response through its official X account of support for ‘all Guatemalans’ “very weak.”
“Many of us saw [the administration’s remarks during Pride] as a message that they were turning their back on us. That was a disappointing day,” added Martínez.
Progressively conservative
In El Salvador, after openly supporting LGBTQ+ collectives prior to his presidency, Nayib Bukele has now aligned himself with increasingly conservative and right-wing currents, declaring after attending the U.S. Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this year that he would “forbid gender ideologies in schools.”
“The real danger is for us to be paying for an education against nature, against God, against family,” he said at CPAC.
Since May 2021, when his party took a two-thirds majority in the legislature, Bukele has been able to modify the law at a whim. His legislative bloc has shown no interest, for example, in the longstanding transgender identity bill, which would have allowed people to change the genders listed on their ID cards, shelving it that same May.
Brochures with information on HIV and other sexually transmitted infections have been withdrawn from healthcare clinics, limiting information to affected populations.
Based on the same argument of child protection, the Ministry of Culture censored a drag artist play, also in June, that was supposed to be presented at the National Theater. Days later, President Bukele published on X that 300 employees of the Ministry of Culture would be dismissed for promoting “agendas not in line with the government's ideas.”
In Costa Rica, the only Central American country where same-sex marriage is legal, the current government has made similar staffing decisions. Also this June, President Rodrigo Chaves dismissed Minister of Culture Nayuribe Guadamuz and Commissioner for Social Inclusion Ricardo Sossa for “supporting” the LGBTQ+ march by issuing a permit for it to take place. Chaves complained that they had not sought his authorization.
“Years ago, the Ministry of Culture issued a resolution recognizing the march as an event of cultural interest, which facilitates certain municipal permits, among other things. The event has had this permission for a long time, and the fact that this ministry provided it is not something new,” said Jochi from the collective No Binarie.
HIV services —for all people, not strictly LGBTQ— have also been affected in the current political climate. While the HIV-positive population and those intimately affected by the epidemic have faced some limitations through the years in accessing antiretroviral treatment, Costa Rican advocacy groups have insisted to state entities that it is their legal duty to attend to HIV-affected patients.
“Many people within the country's health system are unaware of this document and some others use ‘conscientious objection’, approved in the Public Employment Law, to deny access to treatment and care to those of us who continue to be affected by HIV,” stated Josué Lopez, vice president of the Postivxs Association.
“The closure of community organizations working on HIV and sexual and reproductive health must be understood in a context in which the rights of LGBTQ+ people (mainly trans people), women and femmes, migrants, and racialized people such as Afro-Costa Ricans are attacked on a daily basis. The Executive Branch does everything possible to eliminate citizen oversight and assume all public health problems as a multimillion-dollar business for private companies,“ concluded López.
Unpunished violence
The Honduran state has been in the international legal eye for years because of its failure to protect LGBTQ life and rights. In April 2024, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) referred a trans-femicide case to the Inter-American Court: In 2004, Leonela Zelaya, a 34-year-old trans woman and sex worker was beaten up by the police. She was later found dead in the street.
At the end of July, the IACHR stated that the case remained unpunished and the state did not take any preventive measures. The Commission also concluded that there may have been state participation in Leonela Zelaya’s death.
It was not the first case to reach the Inter-American System in recent years: There was also that of Vicky Hernández, a trans activist killed in 2009 in the middle of the military-enforced curfew following Manuel Zelaya's coup d'état. In 2021, the Inter-American Court found the Honduran state responsible for Hernández's murder.
These crimes continue unabated despite the legal precedent. Since 2023, the Lesbian Network Cattrachas has documented more than 60 violent deaths of LGBTIQ+ people.
While President Xiomara Castro won the elections with the support of LGBTQ+ groups for her campaigning in favor of women and sexual diversity, no progress has been made in the defense of their rights, according to the IACHR.
After its on-site visit to Honduras in 2023, the Commission reported: “[T]here are no adequate provisions in the civil remedies for discriminatory acts by non-State actors. In this regard, it takes note of complaints from LGBTI persons, and in particular trans persons, who were denied employment or dismissed because of their gender identity and/or sexual orientation.”
As authoritarianism grows in the region, advocates say these setbacks for LGBTQ+ protections have been collateral damage. Liliana Caballero, Central America and Mexico advocacy officer for CEJIL, proposes that anti-democratic leaders have sought political synergy with social-conservative groups as a “strategy that seeks popularity and support from conservative forces worldwide [and] goes against what has been recognized by multiple human rights protection bodies.”
Caballero also points to Latin American states’ commitments to prevent discrimination against sexual orientation or gender identity, such as through the Montevideo Consensus.
On Monday, El Faro English published the story of Reina Cruz, a center-back on the El Salvador women's soccer team. After fleeing the MS-13 gang with her family to Texas 15 years ago, Cruz learned to play soccer, a sport dominated by men in Central America. She has returned to suit up for El Salvador with her partner, Megan Bennett, whom she aspires to play with on the squad.
“What I would like to do with her is to get married,” she said in a video interview. “Just like they gave me the right to be a citizen over here [in the U.S.], I hope to give her the opportunity to become a citizen of our country [El Salvador]. And if that’s the case, then I hope one day she could try out [for the team] — I’m not saying the spot is given, but to see if she could represent us.”
That would require the conservative-controlled Salvadoran Legislative Assembly to extend citizenship to Bennett, as they have done for players on the men’s team. Nelson Rauda wrote that their request “poses unsettling questions for a society hostile toward women and its LGBTQ+ population.”
This article first appeared in the October 11 edition of the El Faro English newsletter. Subscribe here.
