Ecuador is in the throes of political turmoil and discrimination against foreigners is on the rise. This is affecting gay and transgender Venezuelans particularly hard.
Ecuador is in the throes of political turmoil and discrimination against foreigners is on the rise. This is affecting gay and transgender Venezuelans particularly hard.
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“Hello, Papi, I am in Brazil.”
A text message I received sitting in my home office after nearly a month of silence signified Victor Arellano’s nine-month battle had just been won. Arellano escaped Venezuela with a bullet in his spine, fleeing across violent and treacherous terrains, to have a chance of survival in a place providing no guarantees of a better life.
Early last year, when the pandemic first began its lethal assault upon the world, Arellano, a 30-year-old gay man, was walking home from a friend’s at dusk. He was shot point-blank in the face and was left with a bullet lodged between the joints of his cervical spine that missed his spinal cord by only millimeters.