Some time ago, I read an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/opinion/sunday/i-love-the-un-but-it-is-failing.html?_r=1" target="_blank">article</a> about why the United Nations&rsquo; system, as it exists today, is misconceived and has even led to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/05/world/africa/united-nations-peacekeepers-central-african-republic.html?version=meter+at+1&amp;module=meter-Links&amp;pgtype=article&amp;contentId=&amp;mediaId=&amp;referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com.py%2F&amp;priority=true&amp;action=click&amp;contentCollection=meter-links-click" target="_blank">betray</a> its own ideals of improving the democratic life in our societies and guarantee human rights that are already inherent to us since, ahem, we are born human.
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We said that on October 24, 71 years ago, didn&rsquo;t we? That we all are born "free and equal".
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Next week, the gigantic halls and rooms of the UN will host again several activists and experts from around the world to the High Level Meeting on HIV, from 8 to 10 June in New York. This meeting and its Political Declaration are expected to set the pace for a coordinated global response to the epidemic, in time to commit Member States to assume agreements during this <a href="http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/documents/2014/JC2686_WAD2014report" target="_blank">fast track</a> response to 2030.
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Yet today, in the midst of negotiations and statements, we keep repeating in an almost absurd tone the slogan "ending the epidemic". Yet, today, instead of focusing on communities and how we keep facing increasingly unstable socio-political scenarios in our countries, we are re-discussing the "definition" of the groups that are most at risk of HIV (like we don&rsquo;t know this since forever).
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Yet, today, as a <a href="http://www.jyllands-posten.dk/protected/premium/international/ECE8721836/afrikanske-og-arabiske-lande-har-udelukket-aidsorganisationer-fra-fntopmoede-i-naeste-uge/" target="_blank">colleague</a> puts it, &ldquo;we are forced now to re-fight the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/17/muslim-states-united-nations-lgbt-groups-aids-meeting" target="_blank">basic</a> struggles of discrimination, which we thought we had won 15 years ago.&rdquo;
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Beyond the criticism on the excessive bureaucracy that still can not find an effective way to engage communities, I want to focus on the deep substantive issues that make all these issues at the UN level sound almost like a broken record, as Žižek <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/first-as-tragedy-then-as-farce-slavoj-zizek/1100872739#productInfoTabs" target="_blank">says</a>, "first as tragedy, then as farce."

<h4 style="text-align: justify;">Let&rsquo;s see...</h4>
Ideally, the focus and sole slogan of the discussions should be &ldquo;fast-track everywhere, leave no one behind", and this means that the <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/country" target="_blank">categorization</a> of countries, to mention one example, should no longer be taken into account when defining who will access the funds made available for global solidarity and who will not.

<cite class="simple">We can&rsquo;t leave behind the most vulnerable communities in these places, our countries.</cite>

In 2016, all the accumulated evidence suggests that, if what we want is to build a solid response that really ends HIV everywhere as a public health issue, mainly in our communities, we must invest in accountability, transparency and, of course, in political advocacy. None of the other two things will happen unless we invest in advocacy (governments will not start funding organizations and communities over the night, &ldquo;just because&rdquo;) -and we already know that.
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It&rsquo;s clear that HIV vulnerability does not end by looking at a country, its GDP and how this is allegedly distributed. Our organizations require international cooperation and support until, at least, improving our living conditions.
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Yes, it's true: some &ldquo;developed&rdquo; countries can no longer ask for support to strengthen their health systems, as this should be part of the minimum amount of responsibility they have. But civil society itself still needs global solidarity.
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As an example, let's review the case of <a href="http://www.bancomundial.org/es/country/peru" target="_blank">Peru</a>, as an &ldquo;upper income&rdquo; country with, yet, one of the highest rates related to unsafe abortions among adolescent girls. Like many of the countries (if not every single one) in the region, Peru also represents an uncontrolled incidence of HIV among transgender women and gay men under 35 years.
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Even Brazil, with one the best responses to HIV, as a country that has historically exported all of their good practices and know-how to other parts of the world, is not being able to control its epidemic (and therefore our epidemic) among young gay men and transgender women.
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On the other side, we have some other cases in the region where the responses from the State have been pretty efficient in listening to communities and establish mechanisms for dialogue with them and so on, but when we needed to speak up, the independent civil society disappeared. Because there was no civil society anymore, it was taken over by the government.
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Again, examples such as Peru, Brazil and Mexico, as countries with the largest numbers of new cases followed by Venezuela, have in common that they are also the leaders in registered cases of murders and hate-crimes among transgender women and young gay men in Latin America. Documented cases.
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So what are we doing? It is impossible to turn a blind eye to what the evidence cries out: homophobia and transphobia have an actual cost.
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We need to talk about systemic inequalities, beyond economic ones.
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Human development implies the defense (and mainly the warranty) of human and civil rights. And this is not a "contentious" issue, is not something "western", "colonizing", "postmodern" or anything: we are talking about the minimum agreement in which we are moving towards improving our world, the only one we have.

<cite class="simple">So, we will continue calling "contentious issues" to the issues that criminalize us every day? Are we going to continue leaving entire communities unprotected because of the "sovereignty" of a country, for example?</cite>

Does this mean that the global solidarity will just let us die because of homophobia and transphobia? Or will we deny or ignore the fact that our health and well-being have a lot to do with other social drivers, brutal discrimination and historical exclusion? That HIV has nothing to do with inequality, nothing to do with gender violence?
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71 years ago we said that "all human beings are born free and equal". Today, we continue criminalizing entire communities that are still suffering from a virus that lives and spreads based on inequality.
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Yet, today, we hear stories of people killing people because they love other people and so on.
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Again: what are we doing!?
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We need to talk about global solidarity -but not to do more of the same, but to develop solid watchdogging plans to ensure that countries take care of their citizens, whoever they are, whoever they love, whatever they do.
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We must put this in context: we are facing a global scenario that is feeding extreme ends, on both sides. If the 20th century taught us anything is that every time we have faced these extreme rates of inequality, conflicts have surfaced that have always led to scenarios in which we, minorities, have been brutally persecuted.
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We can no longer ignore the cost it will have to not control the epidemic in all these communities, in all these places.
We can no longer ignore the impact of homophobia.

<h4 style="text-align: justify;">#wearetheepidemic #HLM2016AIDS</h4>
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*Anthony Banbury, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/opinion/sunday/i-love-the-un-but-it-is-failing.html?_r=0" target="_blank">&ldquo;I love the UN, but is failing&rdquo;</a> (New York Times)

¿Free and Equal? Why we need to speak up about inequality at the #HLM2016AIDS

Free-and-Equal-Why-we-need-to-speak-up-about-inequality-at-the-HLM2016AIDS

Sergio Lopez and Adolfo Ruiz, representatives of SOMOSGAY, participated in the meeting whose main objective was to build a dialogue with civil society and communities about the role of the Regional Platform LAC Support, Coordination and Communication and the Special Initiative Communities, Rights Gender and the Global Fund. &nbsp; In his role as a member of the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) of Paraguay, Adolfo Ruiz, during the panel "Gender approaches from the perspective of civil society in the context of the Global Fund," presented the experiences based on the three projects about HIV (including the current project from 2015 to 2018). "Positive experiences are few; however, multisectoral work has allowed the participation of civil society in the process, "he said. &nbsp;
<img height="648" src="/uploads/reunion_LAC_en_peru_1.jpg" width="1440" />
 The new funding model of the Global Fund has stressed review of the structures of CCMs and the reorganization of civil society, thereby assuming the role of advocacy, enforcement and controllership at a national level of the civil society to go beyond the Global Fund. &nbsp; The presentation of Sergio Lopez, a member of the delegation of Latin America and the Caribbean in the board of the Global Fund, included critical points for discussion and agreement on certain issues during the panel "Updating the delegation of Latin America and the Caribbean on Global Fund and the participation of civil society and youth" among them the methodology for allocating resources, regional initiatives, sustainability policies, transition and co-financing, strategies of the Global Fund for 2017 - 2022 and the framework of performance indicators (KPIs) 2017 - 2022. &nbsp;
<img height="648" src="/uploads/reunion_LAC_en_peru_2.jpg" width="1440" />
 "To include a comprehensive approach to youth, it is necessary to resume a discussion on poverty, inequality (legal, social, structure) and violence. Think that people under 30 are vulnerable only because this is an illusion. We are vulnerable because we are young and a gay and trans youth " Sergio ended. &nbsp; The meeting concluded with results reported through the website http://plataformalac.org/, from which are expected to share information about processes affecting the region for Global Fund financing, as well as other information on technical assistance for communities in LAC. &nbsp; Thus, SOMOSGAY stressed the importance of sustaining investment in the region to ensure the availability of human, technical and financial resources to generate an adequate response to the three diseases and have good indicators of performance and impact on the response, high level of inequities and absolute number of poor people. More information is available on this website.

SOMOSGAY participates in the release of the LAC Platform

SOMOSGAY-participates-in-the-release-of-the-LAC-Platform

Sergio L&oacute;pez y Adolfo Ruiz, representantes de SOMOSGAY, participaron de la reuni&oacute;n cuyo objetivo principal fue construir un di&aacute;logo con la sociedad civil y las comunidades sobre rol de la Plataforma Regional LAC de Apoyo, Coordinaci&oacute;n y Comunicaci&oacute;n y sobre la Iniciativa Especial sobre Comunidades, Derechos y G&eacute;nero del Fondo Mundial.
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En su rol de miembro del Mecanismo de Coordinaci&oacute;n Pa&iacute;s (MCP) de Paraguay, Adolfo Ruiz, durante el Panel &ldquo;Abordajes de g&eacute;nero desde la perspectiva de la sociedad civil en el contexto del Fondo Mundial&rdquo;, present&oacute; las experiencias en base a los tres proyectos que se cuentan sobre VIH (incluido el proyecto actual desde el 2015 al 2018). &ldquo;Las experiencias positivas son pocas; sin embargo, el trabajo multisectorial, ha permitido la participaci&oacute;n de la Sociedad Civil en el proceso&rdquo;, mencion&oacute;.
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<img height="648" src="/uploads/reunion_LAC_en_peru_1.jpg" width="1440" />
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El nuevo modelo de financiamiento del FM ha enfatizado revisar la estructura de los MCP y la reorganizaci&oacute;n de la sociedad civil, asumiendo con ello que el rol de incidencia, exigibilidad y contralor&iacute;a a nivel nacional de la sociedad civil ir&aacute; m&aacute;s all&aacute; del FM.
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La presentaci&oacute;n de Sergio L&oacute;pez, integrante de la delegaci&oacute;n de Am&eacute;rica Latina y el Caribe en la Junta del FM, incluy&oacute; puntos cr&iacute;ticos para discusi&oacute;n y el acuerdo de ciertos asuntos durante el Panel &ldquo;Actualizaci&oacute;n de la delegaci&oacute;n de Latinoam&eacute;rica y el Caribe en el Fondo Mundial y la participaci&oacute;n de Sociedad Civil y j&oacute;venes&rdquo;, entre ellos la metodolog&iacute;a de asignaci&oacute;n de recursos, iniciativas regionales, pol&iacute;ticas de sostenibilidad, transici&oacute;n y co&ndash;financiamiento, estrategias del FM 2017 &ndash; 2022 y el marco de indicadores de desempe&ntilde;o (KPIs) 2017 &ndash; 2022.
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<img height="648" src="/uploads/reunion_LAC_en_peru_2.jpg" width="1440" />
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&ldquo;Para incluir un enfoque integral de juventudes, es necesario retomar una discusi&oacute;n sobre pobreza, desigualdad (legal, social, estructura) y violencia. Pensar que las personas menores de 30 son vulnerables s&oacute;lo por esto es iluso. Somos vulnerables porque somos j&oacute;venes y gays, j&oacute;venes y trans&rdquo; finaliz&oacute; Sergio.
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La reuni&oacute;n concluy&oacute; con resultados expuestos a trav&eacute;s de la p&aacute;gina web <a href="http://plataformalac.org/" target="_blank">http://plataformalac.org/</a>, desde la cual se prev&eacute; compartir informaciones sobre procesos que afectan a la regi&oacute;n en cuanto a financiamiento del Fondo Mundial, as&iacute; como tambi&eacute;n otras informaciones sobre asistencia t&eacute;cnica para las comunidades en LAC.
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As&iacute;, SOMOSGAY destac&oacute; la importancia de sostener la inversi&oacute;n en la regi&oacute;n para garantizar la disponibilidad de recursos humanos, t&eacute;cnicos y financieros que generen una respuesta adecuada a las tres enfermedades y contar con buenos indicadores de desempe&ntilde;o e impacto en a la respuesta, alto nivel de inequidades y n&uacute;mero absoluto de personas pobres.
M&aacute;s informaci&oacute;n disponible en este <a href="http://plataformalac.org/" target="_blank">sitio web</a>.

SOMOSGAY participa del Lanzamiento de la Plataforma LAC

SOMOSGAY-participa-del-Lanzamiento-de-la-Plataforma-LAC

La semana pasada se volvi&oacute; viral el video de dos j&oacute;venes de Pedro Juan Caballero que se demostraron su amor de manera muy emotiva y tierna (<a href="http://goo.gl/dbXHUf" target="_blank">http://goo.gl/dbXHUf</a>). Ya del video hemos visto y le&iacute;do much&iacute;simo, pero &iquest;qu&eacute; pasa con las reacciones de las personas que estaban alrededor de ellos?
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Un amigo me comentaba que ser gay en el interior del pa&iacute;s es completamente diferente a serlo en Asunci&oacute;n, quiz&aacute; este estigma palideci&oacute; luego de ver c&oacute;mo los amigos y compa&ntilde;eros de esta pareja vitorearon el encuentro de ambos.
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M&aacute;s all&aacute; de los comentarios negativos que se podr&iacute;an encontrar al respecto, es innegable cu&aacute;nta aceptaci&oacute;n hay al respecto y esto es digno de celebrar. De un tiempo a esta parte, el sector m&aacute;s conservador de la sociedad ha criticado cualquier otra manifestaci&oacute;n que no sea la &ldquo;normal&rdquo;, es decir, la que ellos reconocen como lo que est&aacute; bien.
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Pero tenemos que decir que el hecho de que no sea algo cotidiano, o no se d&eacute; en la vida de ellos, no significa que no sea normal. No ahondar&eacute; en cuestiones hist&oacute;ricas, ya bien sabemos que desde todos los tiempos han existido desde parejas gays hasta infinitas declaraciones de amor en forma de cartas o cuadros de grandes artistas. Hemos venido normalizando lo que es normal aunque gran parte de nuestra sociedad a&uacute;n haga la vista gorda al respecto, neg&aacute;ndolo.
&nbsp;
Como en el art&iacute;culo referido a heterofobia (<a href="http://goo.gl/s8IS9A" target="_blank">http://goo.gl/s8IS9A</a>), donde se explica lo considerado normal por la sociedad es aquello que se ense&ntilde;a como tal, es decir, est&aacute; condicionado, podemos entender que las muestras de cari&ntilde;o son normales y no tienen nada de malo aunque quiz&aacute; en el d&iacute;a a d&iacute;a de muchas familias no se vea, pero &iquest;qu&eacute; hay de las familias en donde s&iacute; hay o padres homoparentales o hijos, hijas, t&iacute;os o t&iacute;as gays? Entonces para ellos esto est&aacute; normalizado.
&nbsp;
Una de las cosas m&aacute;s resaltantes del video es la reacci&oacute;n de los compa&ntilde;eros. Algo de lo que tanto se habla &uacute;ltimamente es del bullying que sufren algunas personas en el &aacute;mbito educativo, y este empieza a sufrir un gran reverso al ver c&oacute;mo hay m&aacute;s apoyo del que muchos quiz&aacute; quieran aceptar.

<cite class="simple">Los j&oacute;venes ya no son el futuro, son el presente y est&aacute;n dando una gran lecci&oacute;n sobre aceptaci&oacute;n e igualdad, van tomando terreno al comprender que lo que est&aacute; mal es el rechazo y que m&aacute;s all&aacute; de lo que pudiesen decir sus padres, o los mismos profesores, ellos tienen una postura y van a pelear por ella.</cite>

M&aacute;s all&aacute; de los beneficios que recibimos como una sociedad saludable, donde vamos comprendiendo que la diversidad nos enriquece, tambi&eacute;n la comunidad LGBTI recibe beneficios positivos, porque los que a&uacute;n deben esconderse por temor ahora podr&aacute;n ver que hay numerosos grupos de apoyo y resguardo que velar&aacute;n por su bienestar. As&iacute; poco a poco podremos ir cambiando esa alarmante cifra de estimativo de vida de j&oacute;venes lgbt, que es apenas de 15 a&ntilde;os, por una respuesta positiva y alentadora que los lleve a aceptarse como son y dejar de tenerle miedo a la sociedad.
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Gestos como estos, en una sociedad tan homof&oacute;bica y machista como la paraguaya, nos dan un empuj&oacute;n importante en nuestra visibilizaci&oacute;n y la lucha por nuestros derechos, porque una vez m&aacute;s podemos ver c&oacute;mo el amor es la herramienta m&aacute;s poderosa para cambiar esas est&uacute;pidas reglas que nos buscan imponer.

La normalización de lo normal

La-normalizacin-de-lo-normal

Desde su estreno en 2013, Frozen rompi&oacute; con muchos paradigmas y fue recibida por la comunidad LGBT con entusiasmo. Elsa es una princesa como ninguna. Let it Go, la canci&oacute;n que escuchamos hasta el hartazgo, se podr&iacute;a considerar como un himno al auto-reconocimiento, en el que la protagonista sale de su propio cl&oacute;set. Oaken, el due&ntilde;o del sauna en medio de la nada, es parte de una <a href="https://mic.com/articles/79455/7-moments-that-made-frozen-the-most-progressive-disney-movie-ever#.jUrjeeAhz" target="_blank">feliz familia homoparental</a>. El argumento ataca contra todos los clich&eacute;s de los cuentos de hadas, de pr&iacute;ncipes y princesas establecidos por la extensa filmograf&iacute;a de la compa&ntilde;&iacute;a. Si, Frozen es sin dudas la pel&iacute;cula infantil masiva m&aacute;s progresiva de todos los tiempos.
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Parecer&iacute;a entonces que darle a Elsa un inter&eacute;s rom&aacute;ntico l&eacute;sbico ser&iacute;a un paso casi natural en la avanzada establecida para Frozen 2. Pero no es tan f&aacute;cil. Figuras as&iacute; son raras incluso fuera del universo ultra-heteronormativo de Disney. Nos han entregado ya una princesa india (Jasmine), una afroamericana (Tiana), una pelirroja que estaba m&aacute;s interesada en la arquer&iacute;a que en el matrimonio (M&eacute;rida), y hasta una que se hace pasar por var&oacute;n en el ej&eacute;rcito chino, suscitando muchas dudas a su luego-inter&eacute;s-amoroso (Mul&aacute;n). Y ya es hora de que el gigante del entretenimiento mire a todos sus t&iacute;tulos para darse cuenta que ninguna de sus pel&iacute;culas de estudio -no solo animadas- tienen a un personaje estelar LGBT. No abiertamente, al menos.
&nbsp;
Es ya cansino escuchar los argumentos de siempre en contra: &iexcl;PUEDE ALGUIEN PENSAR EN LOS NI&Ntilde;OS!, acusando a diestra y siniestra de un lobby para pervertir a los infantes a trav&eacute;s del adoctrinamiento. Pero el &uacute;nico adoctrinamiento aqu&iacute;, como magistralmente lo ha se&ntilde;alado este <a href="http://hipertextual.com/2016/05/elsa-frozen-2-lesbiana">art&iacute;culo de Hipertextual</a>, es empe&ntilde;arse en no normalizar una realidad social y promover un solo modelo de familia y afecto. Porque esta es una batalla alrededor de ello: No se trata solamente de la representaci&oacute;n de la comunidad LGBT, sino de la justa normalizaci&oacute;n.
&nbsp; &iquest;De qu&eacute; sirve la representaci&oacute;n si seguimos manteniendo el velo de tab&uacute; con los ni&ntilde;os?
&nbsp; <cite class="simple">Numerosos pa&iacute;ses ya tienen leyes de matrimonio igualitario, identidad de g&eacute;nero y adopci&oacute;n de familias homoparentales. Pero de no derribar ese &uacute;ltimo basti&oacute;n de los prejuicios, no podremos avanzar m&aacute;s.</cite>
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Y la industria del entretenimiento tiene un poder maravilloso para ayudar a la consecuci&oacute;n de este objetivo.
&nbsp;
As&iacute; que, por favor, que Elsa nos presente a su novia.
&nbsp;
Fotograf&iacute;a: Disney

Noticias

¿Free and Equal? Why we need to speak up about inequality at the #HLM2016AIDS

03 jun 2016

SOMOSGAY participates in the release of the LAC Platform

03 jun 2016

SOMOSGAY participa del Lanzamiento de la Plataforma LAC

02 jun 2016

La normalización de lo normal

01 jun 2016

Que Elsa nos presente a su novia

31 may 2016