Divergence between LGBTI legal, political, and social progress in the Caribbean and Latin America

Recent history in much of Latin America and the Caribbean has been marked by high levels of anti-LGBTi animus, including very high levels of anti-LGBTi violence.1 Both regions have been characterized by a machista culture in which gender nonconformity has been widely suppressed, often violently. Nevertheless, there has been a growing divergence between the implementation of LGBTi rights in English-speaking Caribbean countries and Latin American countries. It is difficult to make broad generalizations about a region as diverse and large as Latin America and the Caribbean, but it can nonetheless be generally stated that, with some notable exceptions (El Salvador and Honduras deserve special mention in this regard), Latin America has made sporadic, but substantial, progress in implementing LGBTi rights (Wikipedia 2009; Ottosson 2006), while the English-speaking Caribbean is still characterized by extraordinarily high levels of anti-LGBTi social animosity and repressive legislation (Ottosson 2006; Amnesty International 2009). The progress in Latin America is most notable the further the countries in the region are from the United States.