Luna Humérez has made history in Bolivia as the first transgender woman to run for a seat in the country’s Senate.

“We are making history, my candidacy is a bet on human rights,” Humérez told the Washington Blade.

She hopes to represent La Paz Province under the banner of SÚMATE, a center-left political movement that includes presidential candidate Manfred Reyes Villa. 

“It is important to occupy these spaces and demonstrate that beyond our identity we have the capacity,” said Humérez.

With a trajectory of more than 15 years as an activist for trans rights in Bolivia, Humérez is not a new figure in the public arena. A lawyer by profession and president of the Organization of Transvestites, Transgender and Transsexual Women of Bolivia known by the acronym OTRAF, she has been one of the main promoters of a trans rights law in the country. Humérez is also the first trans woman in Bolivia to enter into a civil marriage after authorities legally recognized her gender identity.

Humérez is the founder of Casa Trans Pamela Valenzuela, a refuge and community center in La Paz.

Aware of the need to advance protections for sexual and gender diversities, Humérez has proposed a legislative platform that focuses on the control and effective enforcement of laws.

“Bolivia is full of laws, regulations that are obsolete, however they have a mandatory compliance,” she said, noting reforms should improve accessibility and respond to marginalized groups’ specific needs.

Humérez’s platform is “full rights for all, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Facing a campaign from a historically marginalized identity, Humérez recognizes the resistance, but also celebrates the support. 

“My candidacy also speaks of the fact that there is a large number of Bolivians who have been left behind because of discriminatory bias,” she told the Blade. “I have so many anecdotes, which began with those who trusted me, among them are my sisters in struggle, human rights activists, political activists, animal activists, environmentalists, and others with whom we formed ties, mostly young people who also have the desire to take flight and change the country for the better. They are my other family and I am very grateful to them.”

Humérez proposes, in addition to a gender rights and diversity agenda, a platform with seven focuses — legal, political, economic, productive, social, moral, and territorial — and five immediate actions. These include:

• An “immediate injection” of $10 billion to stabilize the economy and create the flow of dollars
• Reestablish order throughout the country; guaranteeing freedom of protest without interfering in economic development
• Create one million “decent and well-paid jobs” that would allow “talented young people” to remain in the country
• “Act firmly” against corruption
• “Promote real authority for each department” that would decentralize the government

Regarding LGBTQ youth in Bolivia, the lawyer and activist envisions a future where “the freedom that every human being has to choose their sexual orientation and gender identity with equal opportunities must be guaranteed.” 

“I notice that the youth today understood this, and now it is necessary to have spaces of accessibility and participation without any consideration,” said Humérez. “The State must guarantee through its instances this accessibility. We need a Bolivia that is more plural, inclusive and in brotherhood.”

Humérez concluded the interview by noting her family’s humble beginnings.

“I know what deprivation is and I know what it is like not to have enough bread to put in one’s mouth,” she said. “If my life has been to help as many people as possible, being in there I will be able to help much more. I am an example of overcoming and showing that anything is possible. Do not judge me by my identity, but by my capacity.”

The country’s general elections will take place on Aug. 17. 

OrgulloLGBT.co es el socio mediático del Washington Blade en Colombia. Esta nota salió en su sitio web.

En un hecho histórico para los derechos humanos en Colombia, la Comisión Primera de la Cámara de Representantes aprobó en primer debate el Proyecto de Ley 122 de 2024, conocido como la Ley Integral Trans, que busca garantizar la igualdad efectiva de las personas con identidades de género diversas en el país. Esta iniciativa, impulsada por más de cien organizaciones sociales defensoras de los derechos LGBTQ, congresistas de la comisión por la Diversidad y personas trans, representa un paso decisivo hacia el reconocimiento pleno de derechos para esta población históricamente marginada.

La Ley Integral Trans propone un marco normativo robusto para enfrentar la discriminación y promover la inclusión. Entre sus principales ejes se destacan el acceso a servicios de salud con enfoque diferencial, el reconocimiento de la identidad de género en todos los ámbitos de la vida, la creación de programas de empleo y educación para personas trans, así como medidas para garantizar el acceso a la justicia y la protección frente a violencias basadas en prejuicios.

Detractores hablan de ‘imposición ideológica

Sin embargo, el avance del proyecto no ha estado exento de polémicas. Algunos sectores conservadores han señalado que la iniciativa representa una “imposición ideológica”. La senadora y precandidata presidencial María Fernanda Cabal anunció públicamente que se opondrá al proyecto de Ley Integral Trans cuando llegue al Senado, argumentando que “todas las personas deben ser tratadas por igual” y que esta propuesta vulneraría un principio constitucional. Estas declaraciones anticipan un debate intenso en las próximas etapas legislativas.

El proyecto también establecelineamientos claros para que las instituciones públicas respeten el nombre y el género con los que las personas trans se identifican, en concordancia con su identidad de género, y contempla procesos de formación y sensibilización en entidades estatales. Además, impulsa políticas públicas en contextos clave como el trabajo, la educación, la cultura y el deporte, promoviendo una vida libre de discriminación y con garantías plenas de participación.

¿Qué sigue para que sea ley?

La Ley aún debe superar varios debates legislativos, incluyendo la plenaria en la Cámara y luego el paso al Senado; pero la sola aprobación en Comisión Primera ya constituye un hito en la lucha por la igualdad y la dignidad de las personas trans en Colombia. En un país donde esta población enfrenta altos niveles de exclusión, violencia y barreras estructurales, este avance legislativo renueva la esperanza de una transformación real.

Desde www.orgullolgbt.co, celebramos este logro, invitamos a unirnos en esta causa impulsándola en los círculos a los que tengamos acceso y reiteramos nuestro compromiso con la visibilidad, los derechos y la vida digna de las personas trans. La #LeyIntegralTrans bautizada “Ley Sara Millerey” en honor de la mujer trans recientemente asesinada en Bello, Antioquia (ver más aquí); no es solo una propuesta normativa: es un acto de justicia que busca asegurar condiciones reales para que todas las personas puedan vivir con libertad, seguridad y respeto por su identidad.

Former Bogotá Mayor Claudia López has announced she is running for president of Colombia.

“We begin today and we will win in a year,” she said in a social media post on June 3.

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Claudia López 👍 (@claudialopezcl)

López, 55, was a student protest movement leader, journalist, and political scientist before she entered politics. López returned to Colombia in 2013 after she earned her PhD in political science at Columbia University.

López in a speech she gave last December after the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute honored her at its annual International LGBTQ Leaders Conference in D.C. noted Juan Francisco “Kiko” Gomez, a former governor of La Guajíra, a department in northern Colombia, threatened to assassinate her because she wrote about his ties to criminal gangs.

A Bogotá judge in 2017 convicted Gómez of ordering members of a paramilitary group to kill former Barrancas Mayor Yandra Brito, her husband, and bodyguard and sentenced him to 55 years in prison.

López in 2014 returned to Colombia, and ran for the country’s Senate as a member of the center-left Green Alliance party after she recovered from breast cancer. López won after a 10-week campaign that cost $80,000.

López in 2018 was her party’s candidate to succeed then-President Juan Manuel Santos when he left office. López in 2019 became the first woman and first lesbian elected mayor of Bogotá, the Colombian capital and the country’s largest city.

López took office on Jan. 1, 2020, less than a month after she married her wife, Colombian Sen. Angélica Lozano. (López was not out when she was elected to the Senate.) López’s mayorship ended on Dec. 31, 2023. She was a 2024 Harvard University Advance Leadership Initiative fellow.

The first-round of Colombia’s presidential election will take place on May 31, 2026.

The country’s 1991 constitution prevents current President Gustavo Petro from seeking re-election.

López declared her candidacy four days before a gunman shot Sen. Miguel Uribe, a member of the opposition Democratic Center party who is seen as a probable presidential candidate, in the head during a rally in Bogotá’s Fontibón neighborhood.

She quickly condemned the shooting. López during an interview with the Washington Blade after the Victory Institute honored her called for an end to polarization in Colombia.

“We need to listen to each other again, we need to have a coffee with each other again, we need to touch each other’s skin,” she said.

López would be Colombia’s first female president if she wins. López would also become the third openly lesbian woman elected head of government — Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir was Iceland’s prime minister from 2009-2013 and Ana Brnabić was Serbia’s prime minister from 2017-2024.