Gender & Sexual Solidarity: News & Updates

Several years ago, Camila Díaz left her native El Salvador and went to the United States, looking for a place where she would be safer as a transgender woman. But she failed to find a sympathetic ear. Deported back to San Salvador, the nation's capital, she was killed just over a year later. Díaz, 30, was one of 138 Salvadorans deported from the United States who have been killed upon returning to their country since 2013, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. Mónica Linares, an activist with the rights group Arcoiris Trans (Rainbow Trans) said the group had demanded authorities investigate her killing.

“José” is an award winning film from Guatemala about a young gay man’s struggles to find love in a socially conservative, homophobic society. “José” opens this Friday in South Florida theaters. But its star, Guatemalan actor Enrique Salanic, won't be here for the film's American premiere, as he'd hoped. That's because the U.S. has denied Salanic a visa to enter the country. “José” won the Queer Lion at the Venice Film Festival – the prize for the best LGBTQ-themed movie. But this film is different from a lot of films about gay people in Latin America. The homophobia is certainly felt. But the story focuses more on how hard it is for a gay man to secure a loving relationship there.

A gay refugee from El Salvador who said he fled gang violence and spent a year traveling to get to the U.S. is suing the Trump administration for sending him to Guatemala as a "safe third country." After a member of the MS-13 gang threatened him in El Salvador & his mom disowned him, he came to the U.S. But he was sent to Guatemala instead. Why does the U.S. consider Guatemala a "safe third country" for LGBTQ asylum seekers? A 2012 report from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission said that states that LGBTQ people in Guatemala face “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including a constant threat of violence that amounts to torture, forced disappearances, sexual violence in detention centers, and non-consensual medical testing.”