Miss Chile Universe Has A Trans Contestant!

When Erin Grinde Tunheim's attempt to win Miss Norway Universe resulted in her finishing as the third runner up in this pageant, with the number of Miss Universe national pageants quickly dwindling, I believed that the international trans community had run out of chances to have another trans beauty walk a Miss Universe pageant stage in 2019.

I wasn't aware until yesterday that we had another trans woman qualify for her national pageant, and this time it wasn't in Europe.

The person who would attempt to make that history was in Chile, and she is 26 year old model Gera Saint Garriga.   She won the Miss Santiago title, which punched her ticket to the national pageant held in Punta Arenas that had her competing against 17 other women from across the nation.

Saint Garriga was motivated to do so after seeing Angela Ponce win Miss Spain Universe and compete in last year's Miss Universe in Bangkok.    She is proud to not only be the first out trans person person in her nation to qualify for a national Miss Universe pageant, but the first out trans person to do so in South America, Latin America and the Western Hemisphere.

While she made it as one of the five finalists, the Miss Universe Chile crown went to 19 year old Geraldine Gonzalez, who will be Chile's representative at Miss Universe. 

Saint Garriga finished third

Daniela Vega To Be A 2018 Oscar Awards Presenter

The Oscars happen on March 4 in Hollywood, and the initial group of people tapped to be awards presenters has been announced.  For the first time, one of the twelve instage presenters for this year's 90th edition of the Academy Awards will be an out trans person.

Rge person given the honor of repping the trans community on that Oscar stage will be Chilean actress Daniela Vega.

The 28 year old Vega is the star of the Oscar nominated film A Fantastic Woman in which she plays Marina Vidal, the trans protagonist in this Sebastian Lelio movie.   She loses her life partner Orlando, ,and her trans status makes it difficult for her to mourn Orlando's death.

Hmm, another movie I'll have to check out.

 

A Fantastic Woman was nominated in the Best Foreign Language film category, and after getting award nominations and international acclaim for the role of Marina, there was buzz building that she could possibly be the person that finally made Academy Awards history and become the first out trans person ever nominated for an Oscar. 

While that Best Actress nomination unfortunately didn't happen for Vega this time, she did get the consolation prize of being the first out trans person ever to be named as an Oscar presenter.

Congrats Daniela for making that history, and hopefully one day you'll be back on that Oscar stage to actually claim an Oscar of your own.

Chilean Trans Rights Bill Unanimously Advances

The election of President-elect Michelle Bachelet is already paying dividends for the Chilean transgender community.

Bachelet regained the seat she held from 2006-2010 and while she was gone was appointed the first executive director of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment Of Women, a post she held until March 2013 until she resigned to run for the presidency.

I'm mentioning President-elect Bachelet's backstory to set the stage for the good news coming from this South American nation where there has been positive movement on trans issues since 2012.  

Trans activists in Chile began a push that year to enact a trans identity law similar to the one on the eastern side of the Andes in Argentina as their public healthcare plan announced in May 2012 they would begin to cover SRS..  

It seems that the Chilean National Congress heard their trans constituents.  They advanced on a 29-0 vote with three abstentions a bill that would allow trans Chileans to legally change their name and gender without surgical intervention, hormonal treatments and psychiatric or psychological evaluations.

It was a move widely applauded by Chilean rights activists.  The bill is also supported by President-elect Bachelet who returns to office March 11.  

"Our lawmakers have recognized our dignity,” Andrés Ignacio Duarte Rivera, founder of the Organization of Transsexuals for the Dignity of Diversity, a Chilean trans advocacy group, told the Washington Blade after the vote.

The deadline to submit proposed amendments to the bill will be March 3, but so far so good for our Chilean trans cousins.

Darn, Still No South American Trans National Legislators Yet

While South American nations have made outstanding progress on trans issues over the last few years and leaders are emerging like Venezuela's Tamara Adrian who are garnering international recognition, looks like the international trans community will have to wait a little longer before we see a trans legislator elected on the South American continent.

Colombia's Shelcy Sanchez attempted to make that giant electoral leap for transkind back in 2010 when she became the first open transperson on the South American continent and first in her nation to run for a seat in their national legislature but was unsuccessful in her Colombian House of Representatives race. 


Back in February 30 year old Diane Rodriguez became the first out transperson in Ecuador to run for a seat in her nation's national legislature.  

The election was held on February 17 and unfortunately the psychology student came up short in her history making run as a member of the leftist Ruptura 25 party for a seat in Ecuador's National Assembly.

The eyes of the international trans community turned to Chile's Valentina Verbal as she picked up the baton in the attempt to make international trans history as the South American continent's first trans national legislator 

Verbal was also making history as the first open trans candidate in Chile.  She was running for the seat in Chile's national legislature representing northern Santiago’s Recoleta-Independencia district as a member of a center-right political party with a campaign message focused on achieving equality rather than her district’s specific needs.

Chile's parliamentary election isn't until November, but unfortunately Verbal announced she is dropping out as a candidate for a reason that is painfully familiar to trans people world wide:  documentation issues. 

Verbal ran for office having applied for a legal name change that isn't official yet.   She is a well known activist in the country and active in her party but was told by Chilean election officials she either had to run for her seat with her old male name on the ballot or pull out of the race.  


“I thought, perhaps naively, that given the vacuum of electoral laws, and filling in that space with the anti-discrimination law, there wouldn’t be trouble getting what I asked,” Verbal said.

The reason Verbal pulled out is she felt that having been in Chilean politics for  several years and risen to prominence as Valentina Verbal, voters wouldn’t recognize her old male birth name on the ballot and connect it with the person she is now and the campaign would be a wash.

While she may have been sidelined for this election cycle by the name change issue, Verbal said, "I’m sure of one thing: I will continue in politics.”

Verbal also said something that I and a lot of folks have made the case for here in the States and on this blog in terms of having more trans people get involved in electoral politics and running for office at all governmental levels. 

“In order to get strong social changes, it’s necessary to make them from a position of power, in particular from Parliament. Because Chile is a very legalistic country, it’s important to have laws to provoke these changes.”

While the first South American, first in the Western Hemisphere and fourth trans person worldwide elected to their national legislature won't happen in this election cycle unless there's somebody running I'm not aware of yet,  it's only a matter of time before it does.   

Valentina Verbal Running For Office In Chile

If Diane Rodriguez fails in her bid to get elected in Ecuador, then the opportunity to become the first open trans legislator on the South American continent would fall to Valentina Verbal.

Verbal is a trans activist and coordinator of the trans commission at the Chilean LGBT rights organization Fundación Iguales, and has surprised people in that nation by attempting to make this historic bid for office with the National Renewal center-right party.   It's a party she's been a member of since her youth and she defended her choice a post on her blog.
Verbal if elected in the November congressional election said in a Santiago Times interview that she intends to work for changes in the laws that affect trans people in her nation.


'We have to change the law that recognizes the sexual identity of transgender people without the state obligating them to have an actual sex change,' Verbal said

Chliean trans activists have observed what happened in their next door neighboring nation of Argentina, and have been pushing for a similar Gender Intetitly law in their nation.  .There's also positive momentum on TBLG rights issues with the recent passage and signature into law of hate crimes legislation that covers gender identity and sexual orientation.

We'll find out in November if Valentina makes history in her nation and internationally.

Chile Activists Beginning Push For Trans Identity Law

With Argentina's successful passage and enactment of a groundbreaking Gender Identity Law, their next door neighbors on the western side of the Andes Mountains want to take a page out of the Argentinian activist playbook and enact a similar law in their country.

According to Blabbeando, the Chilean Transexual Organiztion for the Dignity of Diversity (OTD) has already produced a few ads confronting discrimination against transgender individuals but started launching on June 10 a campaign specifically advocating for a nationwide gender identity law.

They are beginning to produce ads and videos like this one with many more to come.



Since trans human rights issues have been on a roll lately in Latin America, South America and the Western Hemisphere, we can only hope that the Chilean 'Fir The Dignity Of Identity' themed campaign results in the same successful conclusion that happened on the eastern side of the Andes.

Chile To Cover SRS

South America is quickly becoming the most trans friendly continent on our planet.  

Argentina just passed a groundbreaking Gender Identity Law  and now their next door neighbors in Chile have made some moves that benefit their trans population.

Chile will soon cover sex reassignment surgeries under its public health plan in order to allow citizens of limited means to “recover their true sexual identity,” Health Minister Jaime Manalich said.

Brazil and Cuba are the other nations in Latin America that offer SRS as part of their national health plans to their citizens.

Until now SRS operations were only offered in private clinics at a cost of $20,000 to $30,000 but will now be performed in public hospitals in the capital of Santiago and the cities of Concepcion and Valparaiso, the health minister said late Thursday.

Before the reforms, “a poor person had no possibility of completing the process of femininization or masculinization,” Rolando Jimenez, head of the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh), told AFP.

The cost for SRS covered by the national health plan will now depend on the patient's income bracket, with the poorest citizens able to get the operations for free. 

Chile also enacted other reforms and measures to help prevent discrimination aimed at its TBLG population.  The health ministry ruled that blood banks cannot refuse donors based on sexual orientation and that hospitalized transsexual patients can and should room with patients of their desired gender.

If a nation of 17 million people can do this, what holding up the United States from doing so?