Text:Javier Carrington
Graphics:Persy Cabrera
Translated and Edited by: Jorge Paz Reyes
When we talk about screams, we always associate them with violence or lack of understanding, without having a clear view of what they are and what they are for. Usually, screams are emotional manifestations, those that serve to bring out all the garbage, contamination and disillusionment that we carry inside. But when it comes to us, yes, us LGBTQI+ people, those urges become more intense. But how do we link the screams with us, with our struggles? Well our screams and bodies have always been the greatest political tool to reclaim what has historically been taken away from us, our human rights.
As sexually dissident people, our identities have always been censored in family and educational environments. Those LGBTQI+ people that have had the privilege of studying have always had to deal with the erasure of their persona in work and civic spaces. That censorship is the one that always oppresses us and that, if we look at it closely, has been structurally embedded in Honduras’ social system since its colonial times. Honduras ingrained cisnormativity and heteronormativity prohibits us from manifesting ourselves politically.
But there is something that we must remember, the new generations are more active than ever. We are taking a very critical and confrontational reading of the context in which we operate and as queer people we are going to keep shouting to the world and the system as long as it’s necessary. No one will longer forbid us from shouting. Our bodies, our intersectionalities and voices will not be silenced by any politician or movement alien to our problems. If there is something that cannot be taken away from us is our feelings, our anger and indignation. We will continue to live in a constant state of questioning and fighting until the violence stops.
Every day we are more enraged. Every day we engage in more activism and we keep fighting to expose the real problems that sexual dissidents in Honduras are experiencing. This country has to vindicate itself, we are commemorating the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (May 17) and this is a day in which we will continue shouting!
As a human rights defender I know that the opposition is strong but as I always say: if we don’t do it, who will? Will we continue to let them steal our dignity, trample on our opportunities, censor our voices, criminalize us and ridicule us? To the new generations, we say that the best tool we have is our bodies, screams and colors, that is something that the system will never take away from us. No one here is going to prohibit us from shouting.
And finally, something I always mention in my speeches: San Pedro Sula is not San Pedro without its queers, its lesbians and its sex workers, and may Roberto Contreras, the current mayor, endure our existence!
