LGBT history in Chile

20th century

State repression

The port of Pisagua, in the north, was used by Carlos Ibáñez del Campo and his successors as a gay concentration camp.

Unlike some tolerance lived in some aristocratic areas, most of the country manifested a strong rejection of homosexuality. While sodomy was already criminalized in the Penal Code, the arrival of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo to power in 1927 deepened the policies of persecution against homosexuals.

Ibanez's dictatorship was characterized by strong repression of his opponents, many of whom were killed by paramilitary groups. While there is no evidence that actually had been made, within the practices that the government of Ibáñez del Campo terrorized the detainees were those of "fondeamiento" which consisted of throwing political opponents from ships at sea with a weight bound in his legs, so that quickly sink. Ibáñez del Campo, who was deeply homophobic -according to some, because his son Carlos was homosexual-, executed a series of raids and arrests against homosexuals. On many occasions, but has never been proven, it was mentioned that the government of Ibáñez made several arrest raids against homosexuals in Santiago, which have been subsequently sent to ships in Valparaíso to be executed by "fondeamiento".

What is effective is that several of those arrested for sodomy were sent to the port of Pisagua, in the north, where a kind of concentration camp for homosexuals was established, which not only was conducted by Ibáñez del Campo, but also by his successors, existing certain of these policies until 1941, during the government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda. Pisagua, a town surrounded by high mountains and the ocean, at the time suffered a mass exodus of its inhabitants, so that it became a perfect fit for the jailing of several people that were persecuted, practice that would later be continued by Gabriel González Videla and Augusto Pinochet against his political opponents.

President Jorge Alessandri was the victim of homophobic attacks by some opposition media.

In 1952, when Ibáñez del Campo returned to power, this time in open democratic elections, as president, he continued its repressive policies. During his government he promulgated Law 11625 on Antisocial States and Security Measures (1954) (Ley 11625 sobre Estados Antisociales y Medidas de Seguridad), first proposed during the administration of his predecessor González Videla, a law establishing various security measures (such as healing internments, fines and imprisonment) against groups of "social dangerousness ", including vagrants, drug addicts and homosexuals, among others. This law required the enactment of a regulation that would facilitate its implementation, but that was never issued, so it could not be applied until it was finally repealed in 1994. However, this law would apparently had a marginal application, with little records of some homosexuals moved to places like Chanco and Parral.

The former freedom lived in artistic circles and the aristocracy until the 1950s, virtually disappeared as a result of Ibáñez government persecution. One example was the actor Daniel Emilfork, who settled in France. Many preferred to emigrate to Europe and the United States in search of greater freedom.

In subsequent governments, although the repression by the state decreased significantly, it was not in the society. One example was the treatment given by the media to homosexuals or how they used homosexuality as a way of discrediting. The clearest case was lived by the president of Chile between 1958 and 1964, Jorge Alessandri. Alessandri was the first bachelor president in the history of the country, generating a series of rumors in such a conservative country like Chile about their sexuality; the myth of his homosexuality was used by the satirical magazine Topaze and newspaper Clarín, who called right-wing Jorge Alessandri as "The Lady" (La Señora).

Popular Unity and the first gay demonstration

Perhaps the most important emblem of media homophobia was Clarín, a popular, sensationalist and left-wing newspaper, which continuously published notes on homosexuals in a disparaging way, usually titrating with reports of crimes committed by "colipatos", "locas" or "yeguas" as usually they called gay people. This homophobia conducted by the leftist press can be considered as an effect of the idealization of the prototype of man during the years of the Popular Unity, corresponding to the hard worker. Thus, the left visualizes manhood as the ideal of the revolution led by Salvador Allende, while the right took advantage of the image of femininity, visible in pot-banging demonstrations known as cacerolazos; homosexuality therefore was contrary to both conceptions, especially from the political left.

On April 22, 1973 occurred in the Plaza de Armas in Santiago the first manifestation of homosexuals in Chile. Nearly twenty-five homosexuals and transvestites who often roamed at night the Huérfanos and Ahumada streets in downtown Santiago gathered to protest abuses by police, which continually jailed them for "indecency and bad manners", beat them and shaved their heads. Despite this repression, the demonstration proceeded normally; however, the media made the attacks through their chronicles. Even the governor of the province of Santiago, Julio Stuardo, said he would use "the security forces and all the springs that the constitutional mandate gives" just to prevent a new demonstration scheduled this time in the capital's high-class neighbourhoods.

Homosexuality in Chile was decriminalised in 1999.