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One Sunday, April 22, 1973, during the Popular Unity government, a group of homosexuals, transvestites and sexual minorities of popular origin, gathered in the Plaza de Armas in Santiago to demand an end to police abuse. The constant threat and harassment of the police forces, who punished them for affecting morals and good habits just by seeing them on the street, were the engine for sexual dissent to be organized in the first protest in Chile for LGTBI rights.
“The public demonstration occurred the same day that the ultra-right-wing Patria y Libertad group exploded a bomb at the Che Guevara monument in the San Miguel district. Thus, while the political world concentrated its interest in the terrorist attack, the sensational press delighted in covering the details of a public demonstration never seen in our homophobic society, and whose protagonists were a group of homosexuals who had little to lose, “says Victor Hugo Robles, “El che de los gays”, in his book “Bandera holca. History of the Homosexual Movement in Chile ”where he describes this first manifestation including testimonies of original protagonists and in detail.
The organizer of the protest was “The Gypsy woman”, a 26-year-old transvestite known for offering her sexual and hand reading services in the Plaza de Armas. At that time of political upheaval, for some “La Gitana” was the Miguel Enriquez of the homosexual world.
“La Raquel”, one of the participants in the demonstration, describes her in an article in The Clinic as a beautiful, mysterious and lonely black-haired transvestite. He could not bear police abuse or ridicule of people. “That was the reason for the march, remembers Raquel. And also adds: “The police were chasing us a lot. They saw us and took us to Altiro, detained for offenses to morals and good customs. The First Police Station in Santo Domingo was like a hotel for us. There they beat us and shaved us to zero. And that was what hurt the most. Later, one was embarrassed to look in the mirror and the clients did not even give you the time. “
To end these abuses by the police force, La Gitana called on her colleagues to organize. “One day he told us to get together and start screaming just like the students and the many shouts of that time did (…) We got together on time at seven. And we shout and dance the fashionable rhythms like “Free Music”. It was our way of attracting attention ”Raquel adds.
According to the report of the journalist Víctor Hugo Robles in his book, until then homosexuals “did not appear organized, nor emancipated anywhere”. Days after the demonstration, different media published notes on what happened, the content of which was characterized by his homophobic speech.
The press of that time did not hesitate to label the protest participants with multiple offenses. This testimony was left in the VEA magazine: “they were” dressed in a strange way, they began to shout and danced with feminoid and shocking movements. Unfortunately, there were hundreds of little ones who innocently imitated those acts. No wonder a competitor exclaimed: “how far are we going to go!”. The cover featured in its epigraph “Homosexual Rebellion”, along with a photo of four participants in the demonstration and the slogan “The rare want to get married”:
The words that magazine and newspaper journalists used to name those attending the protest were discriminatory and pejorative, reflecting the vision that Chilean society had about homosexuality at that time. According to the site Memoria Chilena, these people were classified as “sodomites”, “crazy”, “abnormal” and “fagots”.
The National Library site also adds that on April 24, 1973 (two days after the demonstration), the left-wing newspaper “El Clarín” published a headline on the cover of the demonstration that said: “Colipatos ask for chicha and pork. They held a rally in front of Phillips Street ”.
The “people’s newspaper” further stated that the main reason for the protest was the legalization of gay marriage. The chronicle stated that “these filthy specimens want marriage between men to be legal. They must be sick of mate. His sexual deviations no longer have limits ”. But, according to Raquel pointed out to The Clinic, It was another invention of the newspaper: Most of the protesters were minors, and had no desire to marry. They received 300 to 600 escudos for their services and refused to have an “owner.”
According to Raquel’s slogan to The Clinic, “La Gitana” was the main speaker of the act. “Perched on the central pergola of the Plaza, she gave the first cry of the Chilean gay world in defense of her rights. “We are the queues at the Plaza de Armas and we are holding this demonstration to let us live in peace,” he declared.
Despite the insults of the people, La Gitana continued her demonstration with more energy. “The only thing we ask is that the pacos not scare us away. We don’t hurt anyone. We’re sick of being detained! We’re good people! We also have rights! ”Says Raquel.
After an hour of the march, a group of homophobes called for the intervention of the police. The pacos- Raquel tells the weekly- “they had been kidding for a long time, looking at us with a hateful face and listening to people’s complaints. But there comes a time when they advance towards us. It was enough that they threatened us so that all of us ran away terrified. No detainee could be brought. ”
According to the report from Vea magazine, the police stayed around the place for a while and shouted to everyone who wanted to listen: “If there is any degenerate around here, tell them no more.” Let’s see if we teach him to parade with sticks.
Another aspect that the press highlighted about the protesters was their socioeconomic status. The newspaper Puro Chile maintained that the assistants to the protest were “about thirty homosexuals from Santiago, all heavily laden with scratching, and in the absence of soap, they walked through the central square before the eyes of astonishment and surprise from the public.” These were compared with homosexuals of “certain status” in Santiago, who according to this medium would carry out a similar protest in the “Barrio Alto” of the city.
According to Robles’ account in “Bandera Hueca”, shortly after the protest of April 22, 1973, “the growing social unrest that divided the country, the hostile press that showed homosexuals as criminals, the threats of coup Military and the police persecution unleashed after the gay rally, forced gay activists to return to their ghettos, waiting for better conditions to resume their fight. ”
It would take eleven more years for three women to form the first homosexual group with a political orientation in Chile: the Ayuquelén Collective, a group of lesbians and feminists that was born in 1984 during the dictatorship.
Today, 47 years after that first demonstration in the Plaza de Armas De Santiago, various organizations, activists and faces of sexual diversity commemorate this day and make a call to remember history. Well, as Victor Hugo points out in his book: “In the midst of a social context of increasing political polarization, prior to the coup of ’73, moments in which the Human Rights of sexual minorities were utopian, a handful of young people of popular origin, who did not exceed 18 years of age, decided to remove the voice”.
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