L A Times article - "Violence against gays" - - -

[imrthr]

Violence Against Gays Common In Otherwise Tolerant Brazil

January 30, 2006

By HENRY CHU, Los Angeles Times

 

CURITIBA, Brazil -- The surgeons who put Nick Oliveira's face back together did an excellent job. Only a faint scar remains from the 27 stitches under his right eye, where the skin had split and a piece of cheekbone dangled after a gang of thugs beat his face to a bloody pulp.

 

But the psychological scars haven't healed as nicely. A year and a half after the attack, Oliveira ventures out at night only by taxi, and he keeps careful watch of his surroundings. He never wants to be a target again merely because of who he is - a gay man.

 

Brazil is a country long famed as a Mecca of sensuality and tolerance, so much so that its European colonizers once observed, "There is no sin south of the equator." Yet for all the bare flesh and the drag queens who strut their sequined stuff to wild applause during Carnaval, there remains a dark side for those who do not adhere to the heterosexual norm.

 

Physical assaults on homosexuals are commonplace in Latin America's largest nation. In 2004, according to statistics compiled by gay activists, there were 159 reported killings of gays and lesbians in Brazil - an average of three a week. By contrast, the FBI recorded only one such homicide that year in all of the United States.

 

The slayings and other attacks are the violent outgrowth of the discrimination homosexuals still face in a culture that remains deeply Catholic and socially conservative, despite a well-engrained licentious streak. Although a dynamic gay movement has made some inroads in the past 20 years, protection of homosexuals lags the advances won in the U.S. and other Western countries.

 

"To be gay or lesbian is still to be vulnerable, owing to the culture of homophobia that is very rooted in people's minds," said Marcelo Cerqueira, an activist in Salvador, the capital of Bahia state.

 

The tide of anti-gay violence seems at odds with signs that society is becoming more accepting of homosexuality.

 

In Sao Paulo, last year's gay-pride parade attracted more than 1 million people, making it one of the world's largest such celebrations of homosexual identity. Rio de Janeiro, that bastion of seaside hedonism, is an increasingly popular destination among gay travelers drawn by the city's lustrous beaches and boisterous Carnaval parties.

 

Many of Brazil's best-known singers, in a land that worships its music, are openly gay or bisexual. And activists were elated last year when television audiences voted an outspokenly gay man the winner on "Big Brother Brasil," one of the country's most-watched reality programs.

 

The increased awareness can cut both ways, however.

 

"Many things in Brazilian society are contradictory," said James N. Green, a history professor at Brown University and author of "Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Brazil." "I think that gay life, as it becomes more visible and more public, evokes anxiety among a lot of men and their notions of masculinity, and I think that's one explanation for gay bashing."

 

To American visitors, Brazilian men often appear more physically affectionate with one another than their counterparts in the U.S., and stories are legion of sexual experimentation and fluidity among Brazilians of whatever gender or orientation.

 

At the same time, machismo and traditional concepts of gender roles still run deep. A 2004 survey among young people in three major cities found that, among young men, 49 percent regarded gays as "sick" or "without shame."

 

"There are many blurred boundaries [of sexuality], but there's also a hyper-masculinity," Green said. "You could not explain all the pejorative and negative attitudes [toward] gay men, effeminate gay men, if you didn't have that. This is a hyper-masculine society - soccer games are a perfect example."

 

Activists throughout Brazil say that not only do the country's notoriously corrupt and violent police habitually ignore complaints of violence against gays, but they themselves perpetrate some of it - for example, in random roundups and abuse of transvestites and transsexuals on the streets.

 

"If you ask transvestites who's the most likely to be violent, they'll say the police. They call them the Taliban," said Silene Hirata, an attorney who works with the Grupo Dignidade organization to uphold homosexuals' legal rights.

 

__________________________________________________________________

 

MY COMMENT ON THE ABOVE ARTICLE IS AS FOLLOWS:

 

Those of us who frequently visit Brazil do not think about the terrible things discussed in the above cited L A Times article. Maybe we find Brazil too wonderful and awesome to notice the dark side of Brazil.

 

Based on my many visits to Brazil, I tend to doubt the portion of the article wherein it states that "violence" against gays is "common" in Brazil.

 

I personally have never seen any violence while in Brazil. I am aware of one American who resisted being robbed and was beaten and still robbed. However, that could happen in any city in America or any where in the world, not just in Brazil. Other than the one incident just cited, no one I personally know has experienced "violence" per se.

 

I am aware of petty theft and pickpocketing, but that could hardly be called "violence" nor could it be called a crime against gays because anyone can be a victim of pickpocketing.

 

I am also aware that certain Americans have been given the "good night Cinderella" drug to facilitate robbing them. The Americans were robbed, but there was no violence or physical harm done to the victim.

 

Could it be that the good author from the Los Angeles Times somewhat embellished the article to get it published?

[trilingual]

Even though it's veered a bit off its original topic, this article was posted and discussed in the thread about "Tourist Bus Robbed in Rio" in "The Lounge."

[imrthr]

>this article was posted and discussed in the thread about "Tourist

>Bus Robbed in Rio" in "The Lounge."

__________________________________________________________

 

Thanks for the information.

 

It is odd that this article about Brazil (South America) would not be in the forum titled South of the border. Posting this article in the "Lounge" section causes many who do not read that section of the message center to miss the article in its entirety.

 

Why have a section titled and devoted to South America yet post topics that concern South America in an unrelated section of the message center? This is puzzling, indeed.

[+ Lucky]

We are trying to keep you on your toes! Expect the unexpected! And why not read the Lounge anyway? Wrong zipcode?

[imrthr]

> And why not read the Lounge anyway? Wrong

>zipcode?

 

 

Actually, I read the South section for its information about Brazil. Usually, the Lounge is less specific and I rarely read it.