Late Venezuelan LGBTQIA+ activist Rummie Quintero. Photo: Venezuela News.
This Tuesday, January 31, several journalists, activists, and human rights organizations mourn the death of Rummie Quintero VerdĂş, a trailblazer in the LGBTQIA+ struggle in Venezuela, and founder and president since 2004 of the organization Divas de Venezuela for the defense of transgender rights. Richelle Briceño, lawyer and leader in the transgender rights movement, announced Quintero’s death via social media.
“Today, one of the greatest iconic figures in the fight for the human rights of the LGBTQIA+ population and people in vulnerable situations has left us,” Briceño wrote. “Many of her dreams did not materialize, so we owe her a huge debt: Rummie Quintero.”
Quintero worked as a defender of human rights, especially for the transgender community in Venezuela, and promoted the legislative recognition for non-discrimination based on sexual orientation in 2011. She contributed to the design and implementation of regulations for gender parity in candidacies before the National Electoral Council (CNE).
Hoy nos ha dejado una de las más grandes figuras Ăcono de la lucha por los derechos humanos de la poblacion LGBTI y personas en situaciĂłn de vulnerabilidad. Muchos de sus sueños no se vieron materializados por lo que tenemos una enorme deuda contigo Rummie Quintero pic.twitter.com/heESzHs7Vr
— 🇻🇪Richelle Briceño🇻🇪 (@Richelle_ABC) January 31, 2023
- The feminist organization Tinta Violeta mourned her death: “Today is a sad day for feminism in Venezuela. Our colleague Rummie Quintero changed dimensions. We will always remember her and keep in mind her critical and incendiary verb and her tireless fight for the rights of trans and gender-diverse people.”
- Laura Cano, a member of Tinta Violeta and former worker at Alba Ciudad, wrote: “We hold Rummie Quintero with us in the critical and incendiary verb of each meeting, in the trans resistance, in the RE-Existence. Thank you, sister, for each teaching, for embracing transfeminism, for making your life a reason to continue fighting for the rights of all.”
- The Comadres PĂşrpura social media account stated: “In the greatest warmth that holds our affection, we embrace Rummie Quintero, a warrior sister who fought tirelessly for the defense of the most vulnerable, especially the LGBTQIA+ community, a person who infected us with her tenderness, wisdom and strength.”
- The Movement of Tenants tweeted: “We regret the death of the comrade in struggle, militant for the human rights of the LGBTQIA+ population, Rummie Quintero; we accompany family and friends in this pain.”
- The Venezuelanalysis website paid tribute to her, recalling an interview they conducted a few months ago.
- Journalist Vanessa GutiĂ©rrez wrote: “Rummie was one of the most loved and respected activists for the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community in Venezuela. She was always doing things in her community. Her dancing, her activism, and her smile will be unforgettable.”
- Luisana Colomine, journalist and retired professor of journalism at the UBV, shared the interview she did while Quintero was running for the National Constituent Assembly in 2017.
- The Clara Zetkin Women’s Movement and the Class Struggle Marxist Current lamented Quintero’s physical departure.
- The Egalitarian Venezuela movement stated: “We have received the sad and unfortunate news of the physical departure of our ally, friend, human rights defender and example of courage and resistance Rummie Quintero, who left without the Venezuelan State recognizing her identity; but she leaves us her fury to continue fighting.”
The same was done by the Faldas-R organization, which shared the following statement on Telegram:
A few years ago, to celebrate one of our anniversaries, it occurred to us to make an open radio. We did it at the House of First Letters. As often happens to us, we end up sending the invitations very late. We wanted to celebrate our birthday, we had written a statement, searched for the site, prepared the script for our radio, prepared flannels, stickers, flyers. But we forgot the small detail of notifying our friends and colleagues when and where the celebration was. We were worried, what if no one came?
Rummie was one of the first to arrive and sit very close to the open radio moderators. In very high heels and with huge sunglasses, our Diva was present.
The radio started up, the two moderators interviewed someone, we talked about the abortion situation, about the Line and other extremely boring things. Our friends, although engaged, began to get bored and the noise level increased.
Then Rummie took the floor, or rather stole the floor. “Aren’t you ashamed? This goes against the traditional family!” The silence was immediate. Our friend played her role as a conservative lady, rebuking and refuting everything we said in favor of abortion with arguments that she knew more than well. The entire audience was captivated by this performance and the radio closed with an avalanche of applause that Rummie happily received and shared with us as a beautiful birthday present.
Today we learned with great sadness of her physical departure, our compa, who was so important to us, who taught us, accompanied us, and when she had to, she lovingly criticized us. The sadness we feel with her departure is profound. We are left with her name, her struggle, her perseverance and her irreverence.
We will continue to fight until we are all free to love, live and choose over our bodies and our lives, dear Rummie, goodbye compañera!
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YVKE World published an interview with her in August 2015. “Religious fundamentalism has not allowed [the diverse sex-gender movement] to permeate the spaces that we thought, at one time, could be much broader,” Quintero expressed. “I can cite you, specifically, the National Assembly. This has not had a real opening towards what are the demands of the diverse sex-gender community. I think it is important that any public servant unload from their fundamentalisms and religious precepts. They should be trained much more on the subject of human rights, with a critical approach to what they are, in order to consecrate, guarantee and apply them.”
“That’s it, fundamentally,” she said. “If we break with that, we are opening that window that was opened before regarding the issue of sexual dissidents, to the so-called minorities (people with disabilities, adults and older adults, women). If we continue to maintain a Judeo-Christian culture, which is the one that rules, that governs the precepts and behaviors, we will not be able to advance. We must, instead, try to apply more strength towards spirituality in general. Not towards religion. And there we can begin to recognize that every human being, even as being born, has rights.”
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At another point in the interview, Quintero was asked about the importance of political education. “I was very afraid of communism, because they inoculated us against it,” she noted. “They injected into us that it was satanic, that it was totally nefarious, that it did not guarantee your human rights, and it turns out that it is the opposite: communism is such a wonderful philosophical and life state that I think we will not see it for a thousand years.”
“The issue of political ideology is very important because only with leftist movements have we been able to achieve visibility,” she stated. “We have been able to achieve some legislative demands that are not directly binding on the community; but that, in a global way, allows us to permeate spaces in Venezuela’s society and have a leading role in politics legally, so that no one can tell us, either in the Communal Council or in the Supreme Court of Justice, that we cannot be there because we are lesbian or transgender. Now, we have a People’s Power law that supports us.”
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She also recognized advances and changes in Venezuelan society. “I am here with you talking calmly. At some other time people could have mocked, half the world would have stopped to browse, and you’d have realized that people weren’t even paying attention. I can go out holding hands with my boyfriend down the street at any time. That was reason to be mocked,” she pointed out. “Not today. Today there are even institutional spaces. Before, transgender people were totally invisible to Venezuelan society. Today we see more transgender people on the street during the day; before we were vampires, only to come out at night. These advances have been very important culturally. That is why we say that we are not satisfied with just tolerance.”
“The transformation we want is cultural,” Quintero noted. “We must clear our minds of stereotypes about what a woman should be and what a man should be. That is what the transgender girls are aiming for. The only jobs we have been allowed to do are in beauty salons or prostitution. But we will keep pushing. The battle is not easy, but it is not impossible.”
Orinoco Tribune editor, Jesus Rodriguez-Espinoza, mourned Quintero’s early departure, and remembered the first time he met her to discuss LGBTQIA+ issues back in 2012, as well as the resistance he faced as a diplomat in launching initiatives to recognize the rights of LGBTQIA+ people. “I know she wanted more,” said the Venezuelan analyst. “She wanted—like most revolutionaries and Marxists—laws recognizing civil unions for non-binary Venezuelans, the decriminalization of abortion, administrative changes to ease the change of gender for transgender people, and the end of the Machista culture that infects Venezuelan society.”
(Alba Ciudad) by Luigino Bracci Roa, with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/AU
