Claudia López, left, celebrates her mayoral victory in Bogotá. EPA. Castañeda, M. (2019).
Progressive Politics in Colombia: First Queer Woman Elected as Mayor by Juan Angel Marquez-Cruz
During the 2019 Colombian election, Claudia López Hernández, became the first woman and first openly queer candidate to be elected mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, the second most critical elected position in the country. As expected, Hernández’s rise to power was strongly contested by right-wing, evangelical, and conservative movements which sought to barricade any future for transformative politics. These movements denounced the populist vote naming Claudia Hernández mayor, calling her “immoral” for proudly displaying her relationship with her wife, Angelica Lozano Correa.
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Although Colombia—along with the many Latin American countries—is perceived to centralize conservative and Catholic-dominated policy, the nation employs a more progressive agenda in their social-political legislation. In 2015, for instance, trans folx over the age of 18 were granted the right to legally correct their gender identity on all identification-based documents. The following year, the battle for same-sex marriage was rendered a success, allowing equal protection for same-sex couples and implementing more progressive policies that chastise gender-based discrimination in the workforce.
