LGBTI ACTIVISMS IN EL SALVADOR: LIMITS AND POSSIBILITIES OF PROMOTING SEXUAL AND GENDER DIVERSITY IN A POST-ARMED CONFLICT CONTEXT
El Salvador. LGBTI. Social movements.
Abstract
This work seeks to analyse LGBTI activism in El Salvador. Starting from the urgency of more complex discussions about activisms located in the Central American region, El Salvador raises the characteristic specificities of an activism of sexual and gender dissidence in the context of a recent post-armed conflict society. It is examined through a complex historical analysis of the armed conflict, the processes of negotiation for peace and the subsequent period in which a grammar of human rights emerged in the country, assisted by democratic institutions reformed by the peace agreements until the rise of the left-wing FMLN party to the presidency of the republic. It discusses, through a complex theoretical analysis, using the literature on social movements and their relationship with the State – especially Sidney Tarrow, Alberto Melucci and Evelina Dagnino – and the other constituent political systems, how LGBTI activism took place in El Salvador during the years of the FMLN governments. It deepens on the relationship of these social movements with instances created during these governments such as the Directorate of Sexual Diversity and the LGBTI Board of the Attorney for the Defence of Human Rights.