We are all equal: Building peace with LGBTI

Rommel Rojas Rubio / IOM

“The war has prevented us from loving (ourselves)” – LGBTI conflict victim During the armed conflict, armed groups targeted specific populations because of personal characteristics like age, ethnicity, class, and gender. This was especially the case for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community. Their rights unrecognized, LGBTI people were targeted by both legal and illegal armed actors. Sexual orientation and gender identity were impetuses for violence. LGBTI people have been denied the possibility to openly love their partners and express themselves because of the fear that they would be killed. Under the civil war’s violence, LGBTI people have been the targets of symbolic violence, torture, sexual violence, threats, physical aggression, and murder. Violence committed by paramilitary groups, guerrillas, the armed forces, the police, and others have forced LGBTI people to hide themselves and keep their identities invisible. Discourses by armed actors and society itself against the LGBTI community have justified the violence and perpetrated imaginaries of patriarchy and social control. In the face of this violence, members of the LGBTI community have come together to resist and to survive.