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On September 30, 1959, "Letter to an Immoral Man" , one of the first public expressions of sexual, affective, and gender diversity in Paraguay. The struggle, organization, and construction of territorial and historical memory allowed the LGBTTIQ+ community, sixty-five years later, to celebrate its 21st march in downtown Asunción. This time, they denounced discrimination and misinformation emanating from the Paraguayan state.

#NOW 🇵🇾 In Asunción, Paraguay, the 21st LGBTI+ march organized by the @coalicionTLGBI 🏳️‍🌈🌼

✊️ To the cry of "Ko'ape Roime, for all rights, let's fight!", people in all their diversity are marching from the Antequera Steps to Democracy Plaza. pic.twitter.com/PqIpuvrDyS

— Presentes Agency (@PresentesLatam) September 29, 2024

Until four in the afternoon, an uneasy silence fell over the streets on the Sunday before the holiday. The heat and smoke, the result of the recent fires in the Chaco region , gave Fulgencio R. Moreno Street an air of abandonment. But from five o'clock onward, the vibrant night was about to begin. Hundreds of people, made up and dressed up, filled the Antequera Steps with glitter.

Color and tenderness filled the heart of the nation's capital. They celebrated their courage, their resilience. The number 108 was present on t-shirts, flags, speeches, and even on people's skin, a symbol of reclaiming the existence of what the dictatorship had tried to suppress. This number first appeared in the newspaper El País, which was aligned with the Stroessner dictatorship, linking homosexuals to the arrests of "immoral" people.

For all rights

The LGBTI+ Coalition chose the slogan “Ko'ápe roime, for all rights. ¡Peju jabatalla!” for the 2024 edition of the march that headed towards Plaza de la Democracia, where the reading of the manifesto and a diverse festival began. On stage, history was commemorated through poetry, music, dance, and live performance. This was the result of the hard work of the network of organizations and independent activists who have sustained the marches for twenty-one years and who worked on promoting the event for months. Additionally, for the second time, the organization of Trans Men, Transmasculine Men, and Transvestites of Paraguay, which was formed in the middle of this year, marched as a bloc.

“We face a corrupt and repressive state mired in narco-politics,” read Carolina Robledo, one of the founding members of Aireana, a lesbian rights group, into the microphone. “We suffer its neglect, just like the rest of Paraguayans. Furthermore, we must confront the violence, persecution, and criminalization of our bodies, identities, and sexual orientations, as we are used as scapegoats in senseless debates whose sole purpose is to keep us segregated. Meanwhile, they remain comfortable in their privileges .

They demanded to be included in public policies and the implementation of laws that guarantee their rights and mechanisms for preventing and eradicating violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The march concluded with the Diversity Festival, which ignited hope and the possibility of envisioning other possible worlds, other futures, like the ones we deserve and dream of.