Tamara Peña, president of Violetas LGBTI+, visited the set of LOVE TV, the exclusive content channel of the Isla Bonita Love Festival, this Tuesday to talk about the challenges faced by the collective in the context of interviews, talks and events of the festival’s social week.
During her interview for LOVE TV, the president of the main group on the island tells us that the LGTBI+ population on the island is still facing discriminatory acts. Through specific situations that the association has dealt with, she explains the case of a couple of women from La Palma who have had problems registering their baby because the name chosen ‘they don’t know if it is a boy or a girl’.
The couple, who had chosen a non-binary name for their baby, contacted the Violetas collective, which provided counselling services so that the mothers could exercise their right to register a non-binary name.
Tamara Peña reports that the ‘calls for help’ from people in the collective ‘are continuous’. ‘People face bullying at work, not getting a job because they are trans… This happens all over the world and here on La Palma as well’, she adds.
The president of Violetas also addressed the issue of how sexilio, a phenomenon whereby people are forced to leave their village or environment because of LGTBIphobic discrimination, is experienced on the island. ‘Through a study we conducted, we know that it is something that is happening. From this study came the sexilio: people who don’t feel good here, who can’t be, who don’t feel free and go to a place where they can go unnoticed’, she explains.
Along the same lines, Peña also discussed which measures or policies make one place safer than another, given that in this study there was also a part of the population that considered some areas of the island to be safer. In other words, ‘the more visible you are, or the more impact the activities you carry out as a council have, the safer people may feel’.
The activist affirms that, in general, ‘if I see a flag in a bar or in a town hall, or if I see that they are doing an event that is for me – because, again, what is not named does not exist – maybe I think that people are at least talking about people like me’.
On the future challenges for the collective, the president considers that these include growing, educating and having more spaces for LGBTI+ people.
