The Politics of Sexuality in Latin America: A Reader on Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights, by Javier Corrales and
Mario Pecheny, eds., (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010, 454
pages). The overriding impression that the reader gets from this
volume is that one cannot make generalizations about global
phenomena, including LGBT lives and politics. Although there is
something of what could be called a “queer international
demonstration effect,” i.e. that “gay culture” is being produced
in and exported from U.S. enclaves like New York’s Chelsea and
San Francisco’s Castro, Latin American LGBT communities receive
such influences in the context of their own histories,
conditions and local and regional actions. One of the most
fascinating parts of this book is the section that considers
what political strategies have proven most effective in
establishing LGBT rights. While the right wing in Latin America
has traditionally eschewed the LGBT movement altogether (with a
few strange exceptions such as the op