More than 180,000 people participate Pride march in Chilean capital

SANTIAGO, Chile — The Chilean capital’s annual Pride march took place on June 25 after organizers postponed them because of heavy rains that authorities have described as the worst in 30 years.

The weather front affected central and southern areas of Chile and caused floods that have affected a large part of the population. The march, however, was unexpectedly well-attended.

More than 180,000 people participated in the march the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation organized.

“We are very happy with this unexpected reception,” said Movilh spokesperson Javiera Zúñiga. “While it is true that Pride marches have always been massive, we expected a smaller turnout than in previous years because this time we had to postpone the parade for weather reasons. However, the opposite happened, since Pride 2023 became the most massive (one) that has been convened so far.”

Eleanor Berkenblit, a 21-year-old American woman from Sharon, Mass., who is studying in Chile, participated in a Pride parade for the first time in her life.

“I really enjoyed the march,” she told the Washington Blade. “I felt proud to be surrounded by people who looked like me, all dressed in colors with their flags and shouts of happiness. I was very excited to march, to be in community and to read the handwritten signs.”

March participants demanded Congress reform the country’s anti-discrimination law, known as the Zamudio law, and asked President Gabriel Boric’s government to support the creation of an institution that promotes and defends queer rights. They also demanded an end to violence against LGBTQ+ and intersex people in Chile, which has been on the rise over the last year.

An American tourist was recently the victim of a hate-moti- vated attack in Puerto Varas, a city in southern Chile that is roughly 630 miles south of Santiago.

“I was attacked in Puerto Varas at gunpoint between 8 and 9 a.m. on June 18 on the train tracks near the Bellavista crossing, in the vicinity of Phillipi Park, by a guy I met on a dating app,” said the man on TikTok after saying the person who attacked him identified himself as Benjamin.

“I took the gun away from him, but he took it back and hit me in the face (…) definitely (the aggressor) has some wounds on the back of the head, as I was able to inflict some of that during my struggle. I have reported all this to carabineros (the Chilean police),” he added.

Movilh, after speaking with the tourist and expressing its solidarity with him, sent his details to the U.S. Embassy in Santiago in order for them to provide further guidance and follow up with the investigations.

“Many people believe that after the approval of equal marriage and homoparental adoption, homo/transphobia ceased. However, they are wrong. In the last year, hate crimes have doubled,” said Ram n G mez, Movilh’s human rights o cer, in a speech during the Santiago Pride march.

The organizers said the large turnout “surprised” them, and said that it surpassed last year’s march, despite the cold and gray day in Santiago.

Several ambassadors participated in the march. Among them was Australian Ambassador to Chile Todd Mercer, who expressed his country’s commitment to the LGBTQ+ and intersex community. Ambassadors from Argentina, Denmark, the U.S., Finland, Ireland and Norway, among others, also attended.

Some parties within the governing coalition did not participate.

Fundación Iguales Executive Director María José Cumplido noted her disagreements with Boric’s government.

“We see with real concern that in more than a year of the current government we have not seen concrete advances in the rights of sexual and gender diversity in Chile,” said Cumplido. “Although we have had a good relationship with the Ministers of ustice and Foreign Affairs, there is a lack of an o cial interlocutor in these matters that we believe should be the Minister of Women and Gender Equality, who has been somewhat distant in the matter.”

Cumplido indicated her organization feels that “in addition to the reform of the Anti-Discrimination Law, we believe that the creation of an institutional framework that is housed in the Undersecretary of Human Rights is urgent, since the country needs to have an entity that is capable of preventing all types of discrimination in a transversal manner, not only that directed at LGBTI+ people, generating public policies that move towards the eradication of all types of violence.”

“Another of our focuses is to give immediate urgency to the José Matías Law, which addresses bullying and discrimination against students based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. We see with concern the rising figures of violence in schools, but if we zoom in on that, the attacks against trans students are becoming more frequent and that hurts us deeply and drives us to continue advocating for solutions,” added Cumplido.

Chileans on May 4 returned to the polls to vote for their representatives to the Constitutional Council, the new institutional body in charge of writing a new constitution. The Republican Party swept to victory in most of the country, winning a majority within the deliberative body.

“Today we are concerned about the position that the Republican Party may have regarding nondiscrimination in the drafting of the final text of the constitution,” Cumplido told the Blade.

Fundación Iguales and Movilh support amendments that would guarantee nondiscrimination in the proposed constitution that voters will consider at the end of the year.

ESTEBAN RIOSECO

PETROS LEVOUNIS, MD, MA

is president of the American Psychiatric Association.