Lesbians Escape From Ecuador's "Ex-Gay" Torture Centers

[Effie]

I just came across this article, and I really can't understand how people can be so cruel... http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/10/07/Lesbians_Escape_From_Ecuadors_ExGay_Torture_Centers/

 

 

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While LGBT folks in the U.S. deal with religious institutions that encourage so-called reparative therapy, antigay advocates in Latin America are taking that quest to a much darker level. For the past decade, lesbians in Ecuador have been forced into what they call torture camps aimed at making them straight.

 

 

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"The girls have all told the same thing: they are threatened with rape or raped, handcuffed, starved and forced to dress like prostitutes."

[emmiedahl]

omg, and the parents send their children there!!!! eleventy, this is crazy.

[Kelya]

:(

I read about this on Change.org and then was reading about corrective rape tactics in South Africa, then about the Uganda gay death bill. I thought I'd go over to autostraddle.com to get pictures of cute kittens and ladies, and found out about the pro bullying bill named after a gay teen suicide victim.

I think I flipped out about this over in QFoC a bit ago, but yeah. :(

[Effie]

Corrective rape tactics in South Africa? :( Oh gosh... I wonder how people come up with such ideas. :?

[YPestis]

It seems that in conservative countries, being promiscuous or engaging in rape is far more preferable to being gay. Where do people come up with this stuff? Why are some people so threatened that others may not like the opposite gender like them?

[Rosa]

I think threat of/actual rape is the most common form of gaybashing I've encountered or heard stories about, here in the States. It's not just other countries. I've been threatened with rape for looking queer twice, and I don't even really look queer (once I was with my girlfriend, so they might have been threatening her; once I was just riding my bike home from work in the dark, when I was dating a man but had a crew cut.)

[Kelya]

I think threat of/actual rape is the most common form of gaybashing I've encountered or heard stories about, here in the States. It's not just other countries. I've been threatened with rape for looking queer twice, and I don't even really look queer (once I was with my girlfriend, so they might have been threatening her; once I was just riding my bike home from work in the dark, when I was dating a man but had a crew cut.)

Yes! The sentiment of "you're not queer, you just need to be taken care of" is fairly commonly encountered in my life, both in threatening and nonthreatening situations. I had a scary experience in a gas station in reallllly rural southern oregon- my lady looks like a boy and when people figure it out, trouble starts. It isn't as dire as in other countries in my experience, but the sentiment is a common theme in queer oppression- you're not gay, let me fix that for you.

[Vex]

I feel very fortunate to never have encountered anything like this. I do think that people judged my ex and I less harshly because we look 'gender appropriate', that is to say that looking at us, you would never think that we were a lesbian couple. To me, it seems that people who look like gay stereotypes (be they male of female) have a much harder time of things, although I have crossed paths with people who have ventured the opinion that gay people should 'look' gay so that straight people know. They feel they are deceived when a gay person appears to be heteronormative.

[annalena]

What is this? 1890 mental ward? Sure sounds like it!

What in the world makes them believe rape is going to turn them straight?? Does that imply straight women enjoy being raped? Do they think a girl is more attracted to men after being raped? Like, DO THEY THINK SHE'LL ENJOY IT?!

[Rosa]

They don't care, they're asserting power.

Also, seriously, I totally approve the horrified feeling, but that kind of stuff isn't 19th century. I had a trans friend whose parents put him in electroshock therapy for "gender confusion" when he was a teenager. In the United States, in a big liberal city, 10 years or so ago.

The torture camps are horrible. I am totally not diminishing it. But people need to look around at what happens near them (I don't know about Germany but in the US parents of teens can do ALL SORTS of bad things to them, even without a mental health diagnosis. Look at Hepzibah House.) Parents under bad ideology torture their kids on a pretty regular basis, or give them over to torturers, and when we tolerate homophobes or think "oh that fundy lite person is a nice person even though they believe awful things" we are tolerating that treatment for queer people.

[fundifugee]

Very sad, especially since Ecuador is one of my favourite places in the world. I lived there for several years and it is one of the two countries where I have lived that I would happily make a home there.

From another perspective though, although Ecuador is well-known as a conservative, catholic nation, I have found it to be on many levels way more politically and socially progressive than many developed nations where I've lived, notably the US. Abortion may be illegal, but there is an active, thriving public dialogue on the rights of women, GLBT, and indigenous people.

On a similarly shocking note, two out of the six out lesbian women in my practice here on Canada's 'left coast' have been subjected to gang rape from males here with the stated intent of 'fixing' them.

I was pretty devastated to hear their stories because I like to imagine this is a pretty humane community, but it is not.

I suspect their rate of having been raped is only a little higher than the average straight female in this community. I have had more than one mother of a girl on the brink of puberty bring the daughter in to my office asking for contraception because they figure she has a pretty good chance of getting raped in the next few years and they at least want to avoid pregnancy.

Similarly, there is also a myth out there that men/boys who have been raped (usually same-sex rapes) are now gay. I have met a number of men in my medical practice who report themselves to be straight but have raped boys. I have also met a number who have wondered if they are straight because they were raped. It is a horrendous idea and I cannot believe that in Canada in 2011 it still exists; rape as sex instead of a violent hate crime.

Sorry for the ramble.

[Kitty]

What is this? 1890 mental ward? Sure sounds like it!

What in the world makes them believe rape is going to turn them straight?? Does that imply straight women enjoy being raped? Do they think a girl is more attracted to men after being raped? Like, DO THEY THINK SHE'LL ENJOY IT?!

It's a disconnect. Rape is bad, but sex is good even if you don't want it. It's like this notion that if you keep going, the woman will eventually just give in to her passion and do what you want. It's only rape when it's someone else does it to someone you care about.