Transsexuals may not change their names in Venezuela, where soldiers are imprisoned if they openly express their homosexuality and neither the constitution, the laws not protests have been able to change that reality, a situation that four young and determined men have been seeking to alter for the past week by chaining themselves together on a Caracas square. Last Monday, the 30-something men – Koddy, Paul and Johan – launched their peaceful, but radical, protest outside the Ombudsman’s Office in downtown Caracas saying that they would not end their demonstration until something positive changed for the LGBTI community here. Jorge, 19, joined the trio on Friday.
Under a pale awning, the quartet has braved the bad weather and the exhaustion of wearing their chains, a visual representation – they say – of the discrimination they have to deal with in Venezuelan society, especially from state institutions that are not respecting their insistent demands that their rights be acknowledged.