Given the ongoing post-Hurricanes Irma and Maria disaster in Puerto Rico, where far too many of our fellow citizens still have no light and potable water, Daily Kos is continuing to cover all of the aspects of the struggle for island residents and the mainland Puerto Rican community (see stories tagged #Puerto Rico and #SOSPuerto Rico). Daily Kos editorial writer Kelly Macias and community outreach organizer Chris Reeves are headed to the island. They are scheduled to arrive today, where they will meet up with Daily Kos blogger Chef Bobby Neery (newpioneer).
It is not enough to simply report the current news, which is covered poorly in the mainstream media. It is important to also teach and educate readers who may not know much about Puerto Rico or Puerto Rican history, culture, politics, and communities. In doing so we can forge bonds that challenge barriers and “othering,” and instead build bridges. Today I want to reach out to our LGBTQ community readers and allies by exploring the struggles, challenges, and victories LGBTQ Puerto Ricans have faced in the past, and the current situation on the island and in the diaspora.
More than three years ago, Bobby posted a story here that detailed a major victory for Puerto Rico. It was titled “Historic LGBTT Announcement: Maite Oronoz Confirmed to Supreme Court of Puerto Rico.”
Yesterday was an historic day - The Honorable Maite D. Oronoz Rodriguez, openly homosexual, was confirmed to The Puerto Rico Supreme Court!
This was indeed a victory (though it was virtually ignored here on the mainland) and it was followed by her nomination and confirmation two years later as chief justice.
We all know who Sonia Sotomayor is, and she made history as the first Puerto Rican woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Though virtually invisible here, the ascension to the Puerto Rican Supreme Court of Maite Oronoz Rodríguez was widely covered in Spanish language and Caribbean media. You can view her testimony (in Spanish) here.
Background
Oronoz Rodríguez earned her bachelor's degree in History at Villanova University,Cum Laude, then studied law at the University of Puerto Rico, where she earned her Juris Doctor Magna Cum Laude. She also earned an L.L.M. at Columbia University and has postgraduate studies in History from University of Puerto Rico, and History and Literature courses from the University of Florence, Italy. She was an editor of the University of Puerto Rico Law Review, and subsequently clerked for Federico Hernández Denton, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico.
Lambda Legal applauded the “Historic Confirmation of First Openly Lesbian Chief Justice in the Country to Puerto Rico Supreme Court.”
"The confirmation of Maite Oronoz Rodríguez as the first openly LGBT Chief Justice in Puerto Rico and the United States makes history, breaks barriers, and marks a momentous step towards achieving a judiciary that reflects full and rich diversity."
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"The confirmation of Maite Oronoz Rodríguez as the first openly LGBT Chief Justice in Puerto Rico and the United States makes history, breaks barriers, and marks a momentous step towards achieving a judiciary that reflects full and rich diversity of our country. A diverse judiciary serves not only to improve the quality of justice, it boosts public confidence in the courts.
“In June 2014, Lambda Legal praised Oronoz Rodriguez’s confirmation as an Associate Justice on the Puerto Rico Supreme Court after we sent Gov. García Padilla a letter urging him to ensure that any potential nominee’s judicial philosophy includes a commitment to rule fairly and impartially in cases involving LGBT and HIV-positive litigants and to seek thoughtful jurists who reflect Puerto Rico’s rich diversity.
“We are pleased with the Puerto Rico Senate’s decision to swiftly confirm now-Chief Justice Oronoz Rodríguez to the Commonwealth’s highest court. We hope that the United States Senate will act as responsibly and swiftly in considering President Obama’s nominee to the current vacancy in the U.S. Supreme Court.
"Courts matter to the LGBT community in Puerto Rico and across the country. We must care about the courts if we care about our rights, our families, our neighbors and our society. We look forward to continuing our work in Puerto Rico on behalf of LGBT people and those living with HIV."
Her name has recently been mentioned in articles about Justice Andrew McDonald, recently nominated to be chief of the Connecticut Supreme Court.
She and her partner just announced they are expecting twins.
The rocky road to marriage equality in Puerto Rico
Like the struggles for marriage equality here on the mainland, achieving justice has been a long and hard-fought battle on the island. Gaining these rights has been part of the overall battle for LGBT rights in Puerto Rico.
Same-Sex marriage
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, which held bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, same-sex marriage in Puerto Rico was legalized. Same-sex couples began applying for marriage licenses on July 13, 2015. On July 17, 2015, same-sex couples began marrying in the territory.
Governor Alejandro García Padilla announced that the commonwealth would comply with the Supreme Court's ruling within 15 days. The parties to the principal lawsuit challenging Puerto Rico's denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples jointly asked the First Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the ruling of the Puerto Rican District Court that had upheld Puerto Rico's ban on same-sex marriage, which the appeals court did on July 8, 2015
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On March 19, 1999, Governor Pedro Rosselló signed into law H.B. 1013, which defined marriage as "a civil contract whereby a man and a woman mutually agree to become husband and wife." During a debate on civil unions, Attorney General Roberto Sánchez Ramos declared it might be unconstitutional to deny the right of marriage to same-sex couples.
In 2008, the Commonwealth Senate passed a proposed referendum that would have asked voters to amend Puerto Rico's Constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, while also banning same-sex marriages, civil unions and domestic partnership benefits. Known as resolución 99 (resolution 99), the proposed referendum was not approved by the Commonwealth's House of Representatives, after the legislative committee studying the proposal decided not to recommend its approval. A similar bill was defeated in 2009. In early January 2010, Governor Luis Fortuño suggested to a group of evangelical ministers that he favored amending Puerto Rico's Constitution to restrict marriage to the union of one man and one woman. Shortly afterwards, he categorically denied that he favored such a measure.
SCOTUSBlog followed the rulings.
Stripping a federal trial judge of authority to decide anything further about same-sex marriage in Puerto Rico, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of such unions applies fully in the commonwealth. In denying that right last month, the San Juan judge’s ruling “errs in so many respects that it is hard to know where to begin,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said.
Slate covered some of the ups and downs:
In an utterly inevitable turn of events, the First Circuit Court of Appeals restored marriage equality to Puerto Rico on Thursday, reversing a bizarre district court ruling, which held that the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges did not apply to the territory.
“The district court’s ruling errs in so many respects that it is hard to know where to begin,” the First Circuit wrote, in reference to U.S. District Judge Juan Pérez-Giménez’s 10-page anti-gay rant. “The constitutional rights at issue here are the rights to due process and equal protection,” which the Supreme Court has already found to apply to Puerto Rico.
“In any event, for present purposes we need not gild the lily,” the court continued, declining to engage in a lengthy constitutional analysis because the First Circuit already ruled that Obergefell mandated marriage equality in Puerto Rico. In ruling otherwise, “the district court both misconstrued that right and directly contradicted our mandate.”
Though the battle for marriage equality on the island has been won, there is still much work to be done for transgender rights, as detailed in “Puerto Rico Is Denying Transgender People Accurate Birth Certificates; Lambda Legal Is Suing.”
Today, Lambda Legal filed papers urging a federal court to strike down Puerto Rico’s policy denying transgender people accurate birth certificates in its case on behalf of three transgender people born in Puerto Rico and the advocacy group Puerto Rico Para Tod@s.
“The ability to define and express one’s identity, and to have that identity respected by the government, is at the very core of our constitutional rights to inpidual liberty, dignity and autonomy," psaid Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, Staff Attorney for Lambda Legal.p "Puerto Rico’s absolute prohibition on the ability of transgender people to have accurate birth certificates violates the constitutional rights of transgender people born in the Commonwealth."
The ban endangers transgender people who have identity documents that don’t match who they are by putting them at greater risk for being ‘outed’ as transgender and increasing the likelihood of discrimination, harassment and violence.”
For a documentary look at the trans community in PR, I suggest you see Mala Mala.
Mala Mala
The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is a difficult case; its residents live in a strange realm where they are not strictly “American” or “Puerto Rican”, but somewhere in between. Documentary “MALA MALA: A Transformative Puerto Rican Documentary” examines another group living outside binaries: the transexual and drag queen populations on the island.
Many people who are aware of the milestones of LBGTQ history here in the U.S. and who may know something about the Stonewall Riots may not be aware of the contributions of Sylvia Rivera.
A veteran of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, Sylvia was a tireless advocate for all those who have been marginalized as the “gay rights” movement has mainstreamed. Sylvia fought hard against the exclusion of transgender people from the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in New York, and was a loud and persistent voice for the rights of people of color and low-income queers and trans people.
Sylvia was of Puerto Rican and Venezuelan heritage. However, I knew her as a street Puerto Rican who joined the Young Lords Party (YLP) as a community worker. I attended one of the first New York meetings of Third World Gay Revolution with her.
She talks here about STAR and the YLP.
STAR came about after a sit-in at Wein stein Hall at New York University in 1970. Later we had a chapter in New York, one in Chicago, one in California and England. STAR was for the street gay people, the street homeless people and anybody that needed help at that time. Marsha and I had always sneaked people into our hotel rooms. Marsha and I decided to get a building. We were trying to get away from the Mafia's control at the bars. We got a building at 213 East 2nd Street. Marsha and I just decided it was time to help each other and help our other kids. We fed people and clothed people. We kept the building going. We went out and hustled the streets. We paid the rent.
We didn't want the kids out in the streets hustling. They would go out and rip off food. There was always food in the house and everyone had fun. It lasted for two or three years. We would sit there and ask, "Why do we suffer?" As we got more involved into the movements, we said, "Why do we always got to take the brunt of this shit?"
Later on, when the Young Lords [revolutionary Puerto Rican youth group] came about in New York City, I was already in GLF [Gay Liberation Front]. There was a mass demonstration that started in East Harlem in the fall of 1970. The protest was against police repression and we decided to join the demonstration with our STAR banner. That was one of first times the STAR banner was shown in public, where STAR was present as a group.
I ended up meeting some of the Young Lords that day. I became one of them. Any time they needed any help, I was always there for the Young Lords. It was just the respect they gave us as human beings. They gave us a lot of respect.
It was a fabulous feeling for me to be myself-being part of the Young Lords as a drag queen-and my organization [STAR] being part of the Young Lords.
Academics in cultural and queer studies are beginning to publish work on LBGTQ Puerto Ricans. If you are interested in exploring the topic, I suggest you read Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora, by Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes.
Exploring cultural expressions of Puerto Rican queer migration from the Caribbean to New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes analyzes how artists have portrayed their lives and the discrimination they have faced in both Puerto Rico and the United States.
Highlighting cultural and political resistance within Puerto Rico’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender subcultures, La Fountain-Stokes pays close attention to differences of gender, historical moment, and generation, arguing that Puerto Rican queer identity changes over time and is experienced in very different ways. He traces an arc from 1960s Puerto Rico and the writings of Luis Rafael Sánchez to New York City in the 1970s and 1980s (Manuel Ramos Otero), Philadelphia and New Jersey in the 1980s and 1990s (Luz María Umpierre and Frances Negrón-Muntaner), and Chicago (Rose Troche) and San Francisco (Erika López) in the 1990s, culminating with a discussion of Arthur Avilés and Elizabeth Marrero’s recent dance-theater work in the Bronx.
One of the key issues confronting many Puerto Ricans who are LBGTQ has been and still is the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Their situation on the island has been exacerbated by Hurricane Maria.
As this article details, “Federal government response ‘has been dismal.’”
Puerto Rico has one of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the U.S. People with HIV/AIDS were vulnerable before Maria because of a combination of factors that include a lack of resources to fight the epidemic, Puerto Rico’s debt crisis and poor infrastructure.
This is an issue I have worked on as a medical anthropologist in the past, both here on the mainland and on the island, and will be writing about in depth in the near future—so stay tuned.
The Puerto Rican LBGTQ community marches with pride. The struggle will continue, no matter what!
Scenes from last year’s march in San Juan:
Pa’lante!