Guatemala's Congress will have its first openly gay congressman

Aldo Dávila of the Winaq Movement was elected representative for the central district in Guatemala's general elections on Sunday. He is the first openly gay man to serve in Congress.

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By Pilar Salazar
Aldo Dávila, of the Winaq Movement, was elected to Congress representing the central district in Guatemala's general elections on Sunday. He will be the first openly gay man to serve in Congress. Social Democrat and former First Lady of Guatemala, Sandra Torres, is projected to win the presidential election, having garnered 23.33 percent of the vote with 20 percent of the polling stations reporting. However, Dávila is not the first LGBT person to reach Congress. In2015, Representative Sandra Morán was elected as the first openly lesbian woman in the general elections, paving the way for the participation of people from diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.
[READ ALSO: Guatemala elections: LGBT+ candidates with a sexual diversity agenda]
Dávila has been a human rights defender for 22 years. In 2016, he represented the LGBTQ+ community at the UN High-Level Panel on HIV/AIDS. The congressman-elect decided to accept the Winaq party's nomination because, he says, it is the movement with which he most identified. He stated that it "gave him dignity by offering him the top spot on the metropolitan ballot."

Political agenda

“I have my own agenda, which the party has decided to respect, because before being a congressman or a candidate, I am a citizen. Something that has guided me is the fight against corruption and impunity, but also the defense of the human rights of my peers: trans women, gay people, lesbian women, queer people, intersex people, and bringing the voice of sexual diversity to Congress, a voice that hasn't existed (apart from the voice of Congresswoman Sandra Morán).”

-How do you plan to include LGBT+ rights in the Congress of the Republic and from your party?
Among the key areas I propose to work on is the promotion and defense of the human rights of sexual diversity. We understand that there is a Presidential Commission Against Discrimination and Racism against Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala (CODISRA), but we want a National Secretariat where everyone is included. That's what I'm aiming for, and the promotion of human rights as such. Article 202 bis of the Penal Code doesn't include figures related to sexual diversity, such as trans women or gay men. Because they don't exist, there's a legal void. The intention is to promote the defense of our rights, to make us visible, and to have our identities and needs written down. We don't want it to say, "Any person who may be discriminated against or who suffers racism." We don't want it to be included in the Penal Code in this article in general terms, but rather for the specific forms of discrimination to be defined.

-How has your transition been from activist to candidate for deputy?
This is the million-dollar question, the one I ask myself every night, the one that keeps me awake at night: does being a candidate mean I stop being an activist? When I was executive director of Gente Positiva, which I led for 10 years, I did request a three-month leave of absence without pay. I'm not going to stop being an activist, I'm not going to stop being a citizen for three months while I'm campaigning; I'm going to continue demanding that the Guatemalan state and those responsible for public entities respect my human rights and the rights of my fellow activists. I'm going to continue being an activist.

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