Fiorella Turckheim and Andrea Ordóñez held hands as they took part in an extraordinary Mass for LGBTQ people in the garage of their home in El Salvador’s capital.
In Bukele’s El Salvador, the space for sexual diversity is shrinking {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}}
The couple say they do not fear discrimination in a society that has become increasingly hostile to sexual diversity under President Najib Bukele.
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Beneath a cross hanging beneath a row of rainbow flags, about 15 members of the LGBTQ community sang hymns, received communion and listened to Bible verses.
“This is a safe place where you can go with your partner and where you are welcomed without prejudice,” Turkkeim, a 30-year-old psychologist, told AFP of her “respite” from growing intolerance.
President Bukele has adopted a more socially conservative approach than ever since being re-elected to a second five-year term in February on a brutal battle against criminal gangs.
Before he was first elected in 2019, Bukele claimed to support the demands of the LGBTQ community.
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Luis Chavez, a gay pastor at the Santa Maria Magdalena Community Church, which was founded several years ago and operates from a building owned by an NGO, now describes them as “unnatural, against God and against the family.”
Last month, President Bukele fired 300 culture ministry employees for pursuing “policies” that were at odds with the government’s vision of a “traditional family”.
A few days earlier, the ministry had approved the staging of an LGBTQ play at the National Theatre, but it was abruptly cancelled after its premiere.
LGBTQ people find themselves in an increasingly “vulnerable situation”, Chavez told AFP.
Shortly after his re-election victory, President Bukele appeared alongside Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milley at a rally of American conservatives praising former President Donald Trump.
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The same month, El Salvador’s Ministry of Education removed all references to alternative gender perspectives from school textbooks, a move criticized by human rights groups.
Juan Martinez, an independent Salvadoran anthropologist, told AFP that Bukele was joining a “small club of far-right, ultra-reactionary politicians”.
Activist Aranza Santos told AFP that in February the Health Ministry had abolished a facility where members of the LGBTQ community could receive HIV/AIDS prevention services “without stigma or discrimination”.
“Religious rhetoric is a tool that many politicians have used to hide other important things that are going on in society,” Chavez said.
“So I think we are just being used to make people close their eyes and ignore the real social problems that exist in the country, the rising cost of basic food, the problems of corruption in the state,” Chavez added.
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According to the Salvadoran Organization for Women of Peace, 2023 figures show that eight in 10 LGBTQ people in the country suffer “discrimination based on sexual orientation or preference.”
In 2021, President Bukele rejected constitutional amendments that would have allowed same-sex marriage and selective abortion.
And the following year, El Salvador suspended its membership in a United Nations body that works to protect LGBTQ people from violence and discrimination, according to Human Rights Watch.
The government did not respond to AFP’s requests for comment.
Turchheim and Ordóñez, a 30-year-old pharmacist, have been in a relationship for two years but their families do not approve of it.
“We do it to avoid problems,” Ordonez told AFP, eschewing public displays of affection in the majority Catholic country.
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A few years ago, she recalled, she was excluded from her church choir because the conductor told her her homosexual behaviour was “abnormal.”
“I was shocked to find out there was no place for me,” Ordonez said.
According to Grecia Villalobos of the transgender rights group Comcavis, the government and conservative elements of Salvadoran society “want to deny we exist.”
“We have to speak up, demand our rights and fight,” she told AFP.
But the fight may be long.
Turkkeim and Ordóñez plan to marry next year, but to do so they must travel to Costa Rica, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2020.
“It would be nice to have it here, but of course, it’s very difficult,” Turkkeim said.
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