In Bukele’s El Salvador, space for sexual diversity is shrinking | World news

Hand in hand, Fiorella Turchkeim and Andrea Ordonez take part in an improvised mass for LGBTQ people in the garage of a house in the capital of El Salvador.

Here, the couple says, they fear no discrimination in a society that has become increasingly hostile to sexual diversity under President Nayib Bukele.

Beneath a crucifix hanging beneath a row of rainbow flags, about 15 members of the LGBTQ community sing, receive communion and listen to passages from the Bible.

“It’s a safe place where I can go with my partner, where I’m welcome without being judged,” 30-year-old psychologist Turchkeim told AFP about the “breathing space” in the face of growing intolerance.

Thanks to his brutal war on criminal gangs, Bukele has taken an increasingly conservative approach since his re-election in February for a second five-year term.

Before his first election in 2019, Bukele claimed to support the demands of the LGBTQ community.

Today he describes it as “unnatural, anti-God and anti-family,” says Luis Chavez, a gay pastor of the Santa Maria Magdalena parish church, which was founded several years ago and operates in a building owned by a non-governmental organization.

Last month, Bukele fired 300 employees of the Culture Ministry because he said they were promoting “agendas” that were incompatible with his government’s vision of a “traditional family.”

A few days earlier, the ministry had approved the performance of an LGBTQ play at the National Theater, but it was abruptly canceled after the premiere.

LGBTQ people are increasingly “in a vulnerable situation,” Chavez told AFP.

Shortly after his re-election victory, Bukele, along with Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei, attended a gathering of conservatives in the United States that applauded former President Donald Trump.

That same month, El Salvador’s Ministry of Education removed all references to alternative gender perspectives from school textbooks, a move criticized by human rights groups.

Bukele is joining “this small club of ultra-right, mega-reactionary politicians,” independent Salvadoran anthropologist Juan Martinez told AFP.

In February, the Health Ministry closed a facility where members of the LGBTQ community could receive HIV/AIDS prevention services “free of stigma and discrimination,” activist Aranza Santos told AFP.

“Religious discourse is a tool that many politicians use to hide other important things that are happening in our society,” Chavez said.

“I believe that we are simply being used to make the population look the other way and ignore the real social problems facing the country, such as the rising cost of basic foodstuffs and the problems of government corruption,” Chavez added.

According to the Salvadoran Women’s Organization for Peace, 2023 figures show that eight out of ten LGBTQ people in the country face discrimination “because of their sexual orientation” or preference.

In 2021, Bukele ruled out a constitutional amendment that would allow same-sex marriage or abortion at the request of the man.

And the following year, El Salvador suspended its membership in a UN body that works to protect LGBTQ people from violence and discrimination, according to Human Rights Watch.

The government did not respond to AFP’s requests for comment.

Turchkeim and Ordonez, a 30-year-old pharmacist, have been partners for two years, but their families do not accept their relationship.

“To avoid problems,” Ordonez told AFP, they do not show their affection in public in the predominantly Catholic country.

She recalled being expelled from the church choir a few years ago after the choir director described her lesbianism as an “exception.”

“It was a shock when I realized there was no room for me,” Ordonez said.

According to Grecia Villalobos of the transgender rights group Comcavis, the government and a conservative part of Salvadoran society want to “deny our existence”.

“We must raise our voices, demand our rights and fight for them,” she told AFP.

But the fight could be a long one.

Turchkeim and Ordonez plan to marry next year, but will have to travel to Costa Rica, where same-sex partnerships have been legal since 2020.

“We would like it to be here, but of course … it is very difficult,” said Turchkeim.

ob/mis/nn/mlr/bjt

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without any modifications.