Son[i]a #437
Purita Pelayo
Purita Pelayo (b. Esmeraldas, 1957) is a writer, photographer and human rights activist, and a key voice in the fight for LGBITQ+ rights in the Republic of Ecuador. Her unusual sensitivity from a very young age soon blossomed into a pressing need to improve living conditions for the trans community in her country.
When she arrived in Quito in the 1980s, she found a community stricken by institutional violence, stigma and persecution. She joined forces with other transvestites and sex workers, organising a collective struggle that took them from the streets to the criminal courts. By learning legal codes, she was able to file petitions of habeas corpus to secure the release of imprisoned fellow activists.
In 1997, together with Estrella Estévez and Gonzalo Abarca, she founded the Coccinelle Association, the first legally recognised gay, travesti and transgender association in the history of Ecuador. They then organised the country’s first Pride march, campaigned against police abuse, and filed a claim culminating in the decriminalisation of homosexuality that same year: a historic victory leading to the declaration of the unconstitutionality of Article 516 of the Criminal Code.
In this podcast, we join Purita Pelayo in exploring her vitality and life force, and the life that she has lived unapologetically. A sensitive woman for whom activism became one of many ways of inhabiting the world, Purita is now mainly working from the trenches of culture to preserve Ecuador’s trans memory and make it sustainable, based on a huge archive of photographs that she has taken and kept for decades. She is now focusing her energies on finding institutions willing to house her archive and disseminate its narrative through writing and outreach.
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