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Trans activist and politician talks about the importance of international advocacy for the LGBT community

Few activists rival the number of barriers Tamara Adrián has personally broken. She is the first transgender woman to serve in the Venezuelan legislature, making her the second transgender person elected to a national legislature in Latin America after Michelle Suárez Bértora of Uruguay.

Adrián married her partner of more than 20 years under her former name, making her and her wife the first legally recognized lesbian couple in the country. As a trans activist and politician, these feats are extraordinary; that they’ve happened in Venezuela, a country marred by political turmoil and a poor record for LGBT rights is monumental.

A former law professor as well as international advocate and national legislator, Adrián is one of a select few Salzburg Global LGBT Forum Fellows who has attended all sessions of the Forum, starting in 2013, bringing her legal and international insights to multiple programs and public panels. 

Adrián has never shied away from monumental challenges in her advocacy. Serving as President of the Committee of International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT) and co-president of the International Lesbian Gay Transgender Law Association (ILGALaw), she has played a key role in the creation and approval of resolutions to human rights documents within the UN.

During her first visit to the UN in 2005 for the Commission on Human Rights, Adrián joked that she only had “two minutes” to speak before the commission but instead used her time to meet with different delegations to argue a case for the inclusion of LGBT issues within human rights documents. As it took 20 years to instigate discussion about women’s rights in the UN, colleagues warned her she would need to wait just as long before LGBT issues were given the same consideration.

Her colleagues were wrong. The first declaration was signed just a few years later, stating that it is against international human rights to provoke or support violence based on sexual orientation or gender identity around the world. “With these improvements,” Adrián warned, “have come increased efforts by fundamentalist groups promoting ‘traditional values,’” – allegedly in opposition to LGBT identities.

Continuing her international advocacy, Adrián credits the Salzburg Global LGBT Forum for its unique ability to connect allies around the world. The challenges confronting LGBT persons are not only national or regional but also global, and thus developing an understanding of how the region’s successes and challenges relate to and influence issues at a global level is essential.

“Countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador in Latin America have made remarkable strides on improving the legal recognition of transgender people and their access to official identity documents,” noted Adrián following her participation in a panel alongside other legislators and ambassadors at the 2016 session of the LGBT Forum in Thailand.

“Opportunities to exchange best practices between governments and civil society across regions are tremendously beneficial for those working on the protection of transgender health and citizenship rights, but also broader LGBT advocacy efforts.”

As she explained at the 2015 LGBT Forum session: “You have to think globally and strategize globally. You think of a globally strategic plan, but at the same time, you have to give everyone in the field the ability to change this strategic plan according to the specific needs of each country. You cannot impede equality. It is inevitable in humans to have equality. That is where global perspective is influencing local perspective. You have to strategize at both levels: global and local.”

Now somewhat of a veteran in the field of LGBT rights, Adrián hopes to encourage the next generation of activists not to be complacent and to carry on the fight. In the Forum’s film on “Family is…,” she shared her own life story to encourage a new generation:  

“Yes, the journey has been very long, and it has come from being a heterosexual married man to a lesbian married woman. Wow! I was never a gay man, but at the same time, I knew that I was a woman, and back when I was 20-something years old, I got married to a woman and we had two children: one boy and one girl. She divorced from me as soon as I disclosed to her my feelings and well — it was the end of the marriage, and for many years I was separated [from] my children because she didn’t allow me to see them... Now, they are part of the family – finally. Once they passed the time of teenagers and started to be in th,eir adulthood age, they started to understand and became closer and closer.

“I am a very happy woman, and I feel complete.”