'Between Dreams, Absences and Resistances': The Compendium of Chronicles of LGBTIQ+ Victims of the Conflict Now in the FilBo

What has been the recognition of the LGBTIQ+ victims of the armed conflict in Colombia? The Peace Agreement agreed between the national government and the extinct FARC guerrilla, unlike others, is identified as the first with a gender differential approach. That is, not only should women be prioritized both in matters of truth, reparation and access to non-repetition mechanisms as well as access to land, but also LGBTI people have priority to access these rights.

However, this approach is not fully complied with, and that is what the victims who make up the book Between Dreams, Absences and Resistances, a compendium of chronicles of members of this social group who, in some way, have been minimized in this struggle for the recognition of their rights in the context of their effects by war internal.

This literary work was presented on April 22 at the Bogotá International Book Fair, where journalist Luisa Fernanda Gáfaro explained that this community has suffered a series of damages after the signing of the Agreement in 2016, with the complicity of several social actors, from the public forces to some media that have revictimized them on the basis of their life stories.

“There are many actors who deny LGBT people, and many of them belong to the institutional framework,” said Gáfaro in the talk accompanied by professor José Fernando Serrano, and indicated what kind of readers he wants me to know and review each of the chronicles recorded there: “Yes, I would like to imagine that, suddenly, I don't know... a policeman who lives in Ciénaga -Magdalena- and who works with trans women but does not know how to treat them or what identity name to call them”, he explained.

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He also criticized the ways in which the State attempts to deal with various gender groups that have been victims of aggressions in the context of the conflict or who have been marginalized in rural areas: “The same Office and other institutions reflect the absence of a gender approach when dealing with cases of violence. against LGBT people”, and, in that sense, he specified that the book is also aimed at parents who want to approach children who are part of this community.

Visibilization of stories of empowerment, the mission of the book

According to the rapporteur, it is not a question of interpreting the texts under the eye of revictimization, something that, according to her, some media do, specifying that it is about telling stories “from weakness, and not from 'alas, poor thing, they killed him, and in the following years, he was abused and in the following years his partner was abused died', no' and that is precisely what the media do. It's about dignifying their struggles and knowing how to tell them,” he added.

Finally, the graphic book that is available at the FilBo, has not yet been read by its protagonists, but nevertheless and that represents a cry of dignity about these communities. Faced with this, the journalist indicated that it is a message for many of her colleagues, because “just as there is no gender focus in many institutions in this country, much less is there in the media, thus falling into revictimization, infringement and stigmatization, then we have to focus on the stories of dignity.”

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