Agenda

[Plenary] Betting on democracies bursting with color

The conditions faced by LGBTIQ+ people in situations of vulnerability throughout the continent have become evident and worsened in recent years with the pandemic, environmental disasters, and attacks on democracy. As a result of these situations, the number of LGBTIQ+ people at risk of falling into food, economic and/or housing insecurity continues to increase. This undeniable reality makes all the more apparent the need to reimagine the fight for democracy as an intersectional fight explicitly against violence, state/police repression, and racism in order to leave no one behind.

Join us in this conversation about the commitments and responsibilities that we must assume as civil society, candidates, elected officials, political parties and as individuals so as not to reproduce exclusive systems and create a shared vision of democracies free of inequality.

Summit – Stories of resistance, resilience and collectivity from Mexico: The best practices of our struggle – Access by invitation

In this space, LGBT activists from Mexico will undertake the task of sharing their best practices and experiences that they have used to advance the LGBTIQ+ agenda in the country. Representatives of the most prominent organizations will participate in this exchange to strengthen their perspectives and strategies in promoting and defending the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community from their different trenches. After the exercise, the findings will be made known in a systematic way, through the generation of an instrument that will be socialized with all the people participating in the conference and that will also be launched through social networks as an original and collective publication as a result of this 6th conference of LGBTI Political Leadership of the Americas and the Caribbean.

Summit – Combating Hate Speech

The phenomenon of hate speech and anti-LGBTI rights, although they are one more expression of existing discrimination, are also a reaction of ultra-conservative and anti- rights sectors to the possibility of a social change in favor of the recognition of rights and respect for sexual and gender diversities. What is visible in this type of discourse is particularly dangerous, since it helps to normalize and legitimize discrimination, which worsens the conditions for social coexistence of LGBTI people. This space will provide us with tools to learn about their particularities, the contexts in which they are developed, and the media they use, and will help to better deal with them and reduce their effectiveness.

Summit – Strengthening Space for Elected Officials – Access by invitation

In this space, the openly LGBTQI elected officials of the region who will meet in Mexico City will be able to exchange ideas and experiences in a safe space. Panels and relevant workshops will be included for the development of capacities and performance of people occupying elected public offices.

The focus of the agenda for the 21st is “Contextualizing LGBTI Intersectionality” and covers the following topics in the indicated format.

Wendy Briceño, Panelista (México) | Andrés Cancimance, Panelista (Colombia) | Daiana Santos, Panelista (Brasil) MUJAR LESBICA NEGRA ELECTA DEPUTADA FEDERAL POR EL RIO GRANDE DE SUR  

[Plenary] Political contexts of inequality and intersectionality

The commitment to political participation as an indispensable vehicle of democracy cannot be thought of without the occupation of our identities and experiences in the spaces from which we have been historically excluded. But how to occupy those spaces that are created just to keep us on the sidelines? Join us in this conversation with leaders from different social movements, to explore how the identities that cross us also unite us in front of a common objective: equity. We will analyze how we can collaborate from our realities without falling into tokenism and the trivialization of our identities? And how do we break down together the barriers that seek to make it impossible for us without leaving aside our individualities?

[Plenary] Promoting trans leadership in the creation of participation agendas

The political and civil rights of people with trans life experiences extend beyond the change of the sex/gender component in identity documents to exercise the right to vote. In this conversation with trans and non-binary leaders, we will talk about making barriers and obstacles to trans representation and participation invisible, as well as the need to redistribute power in the creation of agendas that prioritize eliminating the barriers with the greatest impact, such as the lack of right to health, education, decent work, etc.

Grecia O’hara, Moderadora (Honduras) | Galilea Monroy, Panelista (Guatemala) | Santiago Balvin, Panelista (Perú)

[Panel Session] Regional mapping of the status of LGBTQ participation in recent elections

The electoral processes in several of the countries in the region meant complex processes of polarization and fragmentation in which the candidacies and the agendas of sexual and gender diversities must try to survive. Recent processes such as those in Colombia, Brazil and the United States show discontent with the political class, but have also allowed more LGBTI people to be elected to political positions, carrying flags of intersectionality and inclusion, but also reflecting alliances with political sectors that even limit the rights of LGBTI people. This table will allow to analyze in a regional mapping, the situation that places the current political participation of LGBTI people, in a complex region like America and the Caribbean.

[Panel Session] Painting colorful routes towards LGBTIQ+ participation

The struggle and activism of different leaders around the world has made a historic difference, since the last year has meant a true revolution for the political and citizen participation of our communities with the largest number of LGBTIQ+ people in spaces of popular representation. This session will allow us to reflect on the advances and strategies used by activists inside and outside electoral institutions and political parties that guarantee greater inclusion in the political process, such as the creation of feminist benches in Brazil, implementation of parity requirements and inclusive gender alternation in Peru. and Colombia, and LGBTIQ+ quotas in Mexico.

[Panel Session] Trans innovations to transform vulnerabilities into political power

When transgender people run for office, they face a number of specific challenges that begin during the campaign and don’t end when they are elected.In addition to the common challenges of any political campaign, trans people have to fight against the transphobia that comes with a lack of education, demonstrate that they are really capable of occupying spaces of power and decision-making, deal with physical and psychological violence, combat fake news and dialogue with parliamentarians who deny its very existence. Even with so many obstacles, with each election, more trans people win their campaigns, are elected to elected office, and develop innovations that propose a new way of doing politics.

In this conversation we will learn about electoral success trajectories that redefined what is trans, transforming what was prejudice into political power, in addition to discussing the different political marketing strategies used to develop trans-centered mandates and with intersectional agendas.

[Panel Session] Protecting the trans vote in Latin America and the Caribbean

People with trans life experiences have historically faced different forms of political violence, especially since many of the American States do not know their gender identity, affecting the exercise of their electoral rights. Collectives and trans organizations have documented these experiences through electoral observatories and these efforts have led to the creation of protocols for the trans vote in Mexico, Peru and Colombia.

The Trans Vote Observatory in Latin America and the Caribbean invites you to a conversation about observation experiences and strategies, protocol creation processes, and next steps in the creation of a regional strategy that guarantees the right to vote for trans and non-binary people.

The Trans Vote Observatory is a collaborative and plural initiative of independent organizations that collects, processes and disseminates updated information related to the monitoring and promotion of political and electoral rights of Trans people in Latin America and the Caribbean, welcoming good practices for the full exercise of those rights.

[Panel session] Regional cooperation based on the experience of the Mérida declaration – Access by invitation

The Mérida Declaration was approved within the framework of the LGBTI International Cooperation Congress developed by the Triangulo Foundation and the Extremeña Cooperation Agency in 2017, in Extremadura, Spain. To this day, it has been supported by multiple institutions and regional governments and the state government itself in our country.

Promotes the involvement of agencies and institutions in the inclusion of LGBTI diversity in their international cooperation plans, based on the commitment to the recognition of the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals and intersex as human rights, as well as reporting to those countries that continue to criminalize these populations, urging the repeal of all regulations in this regard, with special emphasis on death sentences and imprisonment, and the prohibition of the right of association of LGBTI people.

Currently, almost 80 countries consider it illegal even to be transsexual or to love a person of the same sex, punishing it too much even with the death penalty.

The Declaration of Mérida is and must be an instrument of political, institutional and social incidence, and from Fundación Triángulo we want to promote its dissemination, support and development in this sense, beyond our country, as well as use it to promote the development of new ways of action and international cooperation that allow us to advance in those countries where development cooperation has difficult access due to the legal and political hostility that still persists in them towards sexual and gender diversity.

[Workshop] Trans Leadership Congress: Towards a Transformative Network

Trans leaders from the region gather in this inaugural Congress to map the valuable knowledge acquired throughout decades of political activism, with the aim of strengthening networks that drive our agendas. Through interactive exercises, we will discuss our collective expectations to empower trans leadership within the LGBTQI+ political movement.

The Congress concludes with the Trans Leadership Lunch, where we will pause to reflect on the emerging issues and challenges present in our own communities. This space provides us with the opportunity to recognize and address the issues that we must confront, with the goal of strengthening the paths that unite us.

The inaugural Trans Leadership Congress and Trans Leadership Lunch were conceived and organized by trans individuals with lived experiences from Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Peru, United States, and Chile. This space is exclusively intended for individuals with trans experiences.

[Workshop] Applying concepts of LGBTI intersectionality

An intersectional look allows us to resist the oppression of exclusion systems and develop tools to confront them, as it helps us understand and analyze the multiple forms of discrimination and their struggles to combat them. This workshop will allow us to apply an analysis under an intersectional look of our agendas, initiatives and projects; which will allow us to strengthen ourselves as leaders. This space will allow the exchange of good practices using as an example the development of historical memory projects that rescue our struggles from a transversal perspective and an intersectional perspective.

[Plenary] Anticipating what awaits us in the next 2 years

Managing change to guarantee the human rights of our community requires serious discussions that allow us to reflect on the advances, challenges and problems that we face in all our diversity. The last few years have represented new and persistent challenges for democracy and LGBTI people in the Americas and the world.

This conference, which allows international leaders to gather, gives us the opportunity to generate a mapping and memory of what has been lived and the possibility of anticipating a specific response to the challenges that are visualized in the coming years. In this session we will hear directly from leaders throughout the region about the issues that impact them such as new pandemics, access to and supply of medicines, security, migration, and movements that seek to undermine our rights.

Andrés Treviño, Panelista (México) | Jeniffer Mella Escobar, Panelista (Chile)

[Plenary] How LGBTI Participation Transforms Politics

Eighty years ago, inclusive political participation processes cried out: without black people this democracy is racist; Sixty years ago, it was promulgated in the streets: democracy without women is incomplete and today, in this crisis of representation, in the face of the collapse of the political class and the fatigue caused by clientelism and corruption that have thrown democracy into disarray, she shouts: we must change the way of doing politics, with new actors and among them, LGBTIQ+ people and especially women and those with experience of trans life. Without LGBTIQ+ people in spaces of power, we will not be able to have the just society that we demand. Reaching the world we envision is within our power as a collective. In this conversation we explore 4 stages that have marked great advances in the LGBTIQ+ movement and about what is required of us to be able to continue transforming politics into a space of us for us/that represents us.

Willson Castañeda, Moderadore (Colombia)

[Panel session] Demonstration as an agent of political transformation

Various demonstrations and protests have taken place around the world, making visible the problems that cross us and advancing an agenda of civil and political rights for decades, however; The arrival of the pandemic represented a challenge and a paradigm shift to think about other forms of protest that allow managing social change. This panel will allow a conversation to exchange good practices and reflect on the challenges of the demonstration as a form of social transformation and politics.