The implementation of the Democratic Coexistence and Peace Program reopens the debate on a sensitive issue that has been simultaneously rendered invisible in the national political discussion: sexual and gender diversity.

Within this process, acting president Delcy Rodríguez requested the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court to develop a “doctrine on diversity as a fundamental human right,” with explicit reference to the LGBTIQ+ population. This initiative has prompted the community to reposition its demands and actively participate in political decision-making, with the consequent and predictable mobilization against it from conservative and religious sectors.

This opening, in turn, allows for a critical review of how the issue has been addressed. But this time, the objective is not to reiterate the repeated demands for recognition of rights from the State, but rather to formulate a diagnosis that originates from within the Venezuelan population and the diverse expressions of activism.

TRANSCEND THE LEGAL

Venezuela is consistently labeled as a “backward” country in terms of sexual and gender diversity. This characterization is usually based on the absence of a specific legal framework for this population, as well as the limited enforcement of existing laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Given this situation, two demands are central: marriage equality (or, failing that, legal recognition of same-sex parent families) and legal name and gender change for transgender people.

It’s worth remembering that a bill for equal marriage was presented to the National Assembly in 2014 , and that since 2009, the Organic Law of the Civil Registry (Article 146) has allowed for the correction of a name when it does not match one’s gender identity. However, despite existing legal provisions and the fact that legal actions have already been taken to adjust identity documents, these initiatives have had little practical impact.

But this stagnation also masks a deeper problem: the diverse agenda has failed to translate into, or extend to, the whole of Venezuelan society. While the population’s primary concerns revolve around the recovery of the socioeconomic environment and living in peaceful conditions, social resistance persists to acknowledging that discrimination remains prevalent.

This resistance is generally articulated in three recurring forms in public debate and digital spaces . The first is the denial or minimization of the problem, which maintains that “nothing is happening here” to the diverse population and reduces their demands to an attempt to draw attention to more urgent priorities. The second resorts to stigmatization based on religious or moralistic arguments, appealing to the defense of a traditional family order, biological essentialism, or alleged risks to children. The third—frequent, incidentally, in some sectors of the left—starts from a supposed ethical or intellectual superiority to dismiss the need for a specific normative and institutional framework, under the premise that such a struggle fragments the social agenda; a position that, in practice, only reveals a lack of political will to reflect on the issue and recognize the structural vulnerabilities that affect the community.

The paradox is clear: how can one claim that discrimination doesn’t exist when labels that stigmatize gender and sexually diverse people, such as “sick,” “deviant,” or “immoral,” persist? Why wouldn’t it be a priority to build a minimal institutional framework to serve a historically marginalized group facing specific socioeconomic, employment, health, and security barriers? Can it be argued that protecting the lives and full recognition of a sector isn’t urgent when that sector lacks the guarantees enjoyed by the rest of the population?

From the perspective of legal sociology , this gap is not only normative but also cultural and political; and it represents a fundamental limitation that diverse sex and gender activism must address. However, state inaction has been compounded by the subordination of this activism to the logic of external funding, largely transforming it into project management or initiatives with quantitative goals to meet, figures to report to the international “humanitarian” system, and agendas, methodologies, and categories of analysis dictated from the outside; a dynamic that has displaced organic discussion and distanced it from grassroots organizing.

Recognizing this does not imply yielding to or further postponing the legitimate demands of the Venezuelan LGBTIQ+ population. But it does imply acknowledging that the community must strengthen its autonomy and coordination around its own political agenda, one that is aligned with the urgent needs and challenges of the national context. This agenda must go beyond sectoral issues, current disputes, and a welfare-based approach, to encompass a vision rooted in historical reality, with a commitment to long-term political construction and social transformation.

THE CHALLENGE: TO CHART YOUR OWN PATH

In 2019, within the framework of the symposium “ Purple Conversations ”, the historian and university professor Marianela Tovar raised the need for the diverse sex-gender collective to develop its own “ Cartagena Manifesto ”, in direct allusion to the document developed by El Libertador in 1812.

In it, Bolívar conducts a self-assessment of the political and institutional causes of the fall of the First Republic, prioritizing internal errors over Spanish military power. He then proposes a program of action grounded in the circumstances to overcome the mistakes made and advance the independence process. In this sense, Tovar’s account invites us to replicate this exercise in situated self-criticism to achieve a clear objective.

It is essential that organized expressions of sexual and gender diversity develop a program that transcends " queer " discourse, the mere imitation of struggles in the Global North, and purely identity-based approaches. A vision oriented toward the specificities and challenges of the national territory is required, one that is aware of the current political climate in the country and capable of influencing the cultural, spiritual, educational, communicational, and legal spheres. This approach must begin with the specific and most urgent vulnerabilities of the LGBTIQ+ population, as well as the concrete challenges posed by each of these areas.

This involves recognizing the fundamental role of the State in the care and protection of all of society, without losing sight of recognition policies and demanding an end to the fear of validating other forms of family, desire, identity construction and gender expressions, under the understanding that homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, trans and non-binary people are part of the struggles and the daily construction of the country.

It is necessary to mainstream LGBTIQ+ issues into the defense of fundamental rights for the entire population, such as access to work, wages, education, housing, and decent health care; all aspects severely impacted after years of blockade and disruption of social investment, and around which the diverse sex-gender population suffers inequalities that seriously limit their access, as a result of discrimination.

Simultaneously, it is necessary to abandon the supposedly “self-critical” label that brands us as “backward”: backward compared to what? This label is deeply damaging insofar as it is made in relation to external models, aspiring to replicate other realities while diverting attention from our own context, our historical development, and our capacity for political action in the face of present challenges.

In any case, this is a reflection that activism itself must undertake, but on this occasion, it is carried out from the perspective of knowledge and belonging to the community itself. From this critical standpoint, it is argued that remaining in a position of constant demands on the State does not allow for real progress; and that it is crucial for LGBTIQ+ activism to truly recognize itself as an actor, and not merely as a recipient, in order to achieve the subjective redress that diversity itself deserves and must forge for itself.

Therefore, yes, it is necessary to achieve a legal framework that guarantees full recognition as subjects of law, but it is up to the collective to present the country with a national project that transcends the normative and incorporates the demands of sex-gender diversity into a strategic proposal, capable of presenting a conception of society in which we can all see ourselves reflected.