Armed Conflict and Sexual Para-politics in Colombia

Abstract

This chapter argues that anti-homosexual violence in Colombia contributes to the creation of an authoritarian and hierarchical gender and sexual order through the selective use of violence. Throughout the social conflict in Colombia, armed groups have imposed gender and sexual policies to control the lives of women and men in the areas in dispute. This kind of politics centres on socio-political violence that originated in the past and is reorganised under new economic and political projects. It has transformed itself over time, and has changed the daily lives of communities in both war and non-war zones. The case studies illustrate how gender and sexual violence are not a collateral damage from the conflict, but are at its core. The chapter develops a concept of “sexual para-politics,” to emphasise that the violence and its effects result from parallel systems of governance in dispute. These sexual para-politics continuously target travestis and impoverished homosexuals in contexts of socio-economic marginalisation.