Belissa Andía Pérez (born 7 July 1953, Atico) is a Peruvian activist and essayist. She is the "trans secretariat" of Instituto Runa de Desarrollo y Estudios sobre Género.[1] She is also a member of the Junta and the secretary in the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, a Latin American organization that represents the interests of transsexuals.[1][2] She is also a founding council member of the Hirschfeld Eddy Foundation.[3]
Belissa Andía Pérez | |
|---|---|
| Born | 7 July 1953 |
| Occupation(s) | Human rights activist, transgender rights activist, essayist |
| Political party | New Left Movement (Peru) |
| Movement | Feminism |
Biography
editShe was born in Arequipa, Peru. She went to elementary school at San Antonio de Padua and secondary school at Bartolomé Herrera.[4] When she was a teenager, she came out to her family as a trans woman. She notes this was at a time when being gay was very taboo and that transgender people were rarely conceived of.[4]
In her youth, she became involved with Catholic organizations practicing liberation theology. She left these Christian groups later, due to ideological contradictions.[4] She soon was involved in leftist organizations due to their themes of meeting the demands of the working class and of sexual liberation, and finding these issues and more to be related to capitalism.
Pérez attended university for two years are National University of San Marcos in pursuit of a degree focused on genetics, though she did not graduate.[4]
In 2004, she became a member of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association's (IGLA's) World Board for the Latin American and Caribbean Region.[5] By the next year, the group decided there needed to be a transgender official. Thus, at the 2005 Latin American Regional Conference, members elected Pérez to the position.[6]
Pérez speaks on the discrimination transgender people experience. Namely, how there is a strong association of transgender people with sexually transmitted infections and mental illness. She notes: "We [transgender people] do not have a place in society because of normalisation and narrow-minded views, even today some countries punish by law people whose conduct does not conform to their ideas of a binary, man-woman world." She has also observed that transgender people are "rebels of the rule of heteronormativity, and not only in the conceptual sense, but also in the physical bodies of transgender people."[7]
Pérez is also a secretary at the Runa Institute for Development and Gender Studies. Her work focuses on human rights, especially for transgender people.[4]
In 2006, she ran for the Congress of the Republic of Peru with the New Left Movement.[8] She was not elected, but made history as the first transgender candidate in Peru's general elections.[9][10]
Filmography
edit- Loxoro (2011)[11]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b "Questions for the Trans Secretariat". ILGA (121). 6 July 2006. Archived from the original on 29 June 2007. Retrieved 3 December 2023.
- ^ "ILGA | Conference & Board". IGLA. Archived from the original on 14 August 2007. Retrieved 3 June 2023.
- ^ Jetz, Klaus (18 November 2009). "Sexuelle Minderheiten und Menschenrechte: (K)ein Thema in Entwicklungspolitik und Entwicklungszusammenarbeit?" (PDF) (in German). Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 June 2023.
- ^ a b c d e "Belissa Andía Pérez". ILGA. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.
- ^ "XXIII ILGA World Conference - Geneva: 27th March - 3rd April 2006" (PDF). IGLA. XXIII: 6–8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 September 2007.
- ^ "About IGLA". ILGA. Archived from the original on 14 August 2007.
- ^ Zhang, Sophie (13 April 2005). "Gender Rights are Human Rights". ngoCHR. Archived from the original on 22 December 2005. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
- ^ "Belissa Andía busca reivindicar derechos de gays y lesbianas". rpp.pe (in Spanish). 2 December 2023. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 3 December 2023.
- ^ Alza Barco, Carlos; Rojas, Pilar; Navarro, Alejandra; Mezarina, Julián; Hidalgo, Alberto; Castillo, Denisse; Cornejo, Gissela; Salgado, Laleska (2017). Jurado Nacional de Elecciones y Escuela de Gobierno y Políticas Públicas de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP) (ed.). Igualdad para construir democracia : análisis de las candidaturas LGTBI en los procesos electorales 2006 al 2016 (Primera ed.). OCLC 1022849928. Retrieved 28 October 2022.
- ^ "Copia archivada". Archived from the original on 21 September 2007. Retrieved 26 July 2007.
- ^ Braier, Natasha (26 July 2012), LOXORO, retrieved 3 December 2023