This article presents a timeline of the most relevant events in the history of LGBT people in Ecuador. The earliest manifestations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Ecuador were in the pre-Columbian era, in cultures such as Valdivia, Tumaco-La Tolita, and Bahía, of which evidence has been found suggesting that homosexuality was common among its members. Documents by Hispanic chroniclers and historians—such as Pedro Cieza de León, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, and Garcilaso de la Vega—point to the Manteño-Huancavilca culture in particular as one in which homosexuality was openly practiced and accepted. However, with the Spanish conquest, a system of repression was established against anyone who practiced homosexuality in the territories that currently make up Ecuador.
Homosexuality remained absent from the Ecuadorian Criminal Code until 1871, when it was classified for the first time as a crime with a penalty of four to eight years in prison. During the subsequent decades, there was little mention of the subject, mainly due to the criminalization of homosexuality and the conservatism present in Ecuadorian society at the time. A noticeable change took place in the late 1970s, when waves of migration to major cities and the effect of events such as the Stonewall riots caused an increase in the visibility of LGBT people, who began to hold informal meetings that would lead to the birth of an Ecuadorian gay community. However, these activities led to a spike in police repression, mainly during the administration of León Febres-Cordero Ribadeneyra (1984–1988).
The event that marked the turning point in LGBT rights activism was the raid on the Bar Abanicos, a gay bar in the city of Cuenca that was the subject of police intervention in June 1997 and where dozens of people were arrested, and then tortured and raped. The event sparked criticism nationwide and led the various LGBT groups in the country to unite for the first time in a single front, in order to demand the decriminalization of homosexuality and organize the first marches and public demonstrations of LGBT people in the history of Ecuador. Finally, on 25 November 1997, the Constitutional Court decriminalized homosexuality.
The first years of the 21st century were characterized by greater visibility and social acceptance of sexual diversity. With the implementation of the 2008 Constitution, LGBT people witnessed progress being made regarding their rights, such as the legalization of de facto unions between persons of the same sex. Recent years have brought more advances in favor of the demands of LGBT groups, with several of them obtained through rulings of the Constitutional Court, such as and Case 10-18-CN, decided on 12 June 2019 and through which same-sex marriage was legalized in Ecuador.
Before the 20th century There is archaeological evidence, as well as chronicles, of homosexuality being practiced openly—before the Spanish conquest—among the pre-Columbian peoples that inhabited what is now Ecuador.: "[...]the chronicles from the early centuries of the colonial period make it very clear that, among some peoples of pre-Columbian America, the manifestation of sexual preferences between persons of the same sex was very common, that it was practiced openly without any social sanction whatsoever [...], for the specific case of the Ecuadorian coast, several chroniclers attested to the existence of a group of boys and young men who were dressed and adorned with feminine attributes, and who played the role of sexual servants for the men of the elite classes, a select group called (lit. wearers of chaquiras, or beads)." Ceramics have been found from the Valdivia culture that showed this type of relationship as part of its representations of eroticism and fertility. Everything changed with the arrival of the Europeans, who imposed a negative view of homosexuality based on their Catholic beliefs.
1594 11 October: Andrés Cupín, former slave of doctor —who until the previous year had held the position of president of the Real Audiencia of Quito—is executed in Lima by garrotte vil after having been accused of the sin of sodomy committed with Barros. In turn, Barros was sentenced in 1597 to the payment of 7,000 ducats and banishment from the Indies.
1837 The first Criminal Code of Ecuador was issued, which did not include sanctions for homosexual relations.
1871 A new Criminal Code was issued to criminalize homosexuality in Ecuador for the first time, specifically male homosexuality, which was referred to as "sodomy." Article 401 of this Code stated:
20th century 1926 26 April: Loja-born writer Pablo Palacio published his short story (The Man Who Was Kicked to Death) in magazine—the first cuadorian literary work to openly deal with the subject of homosexuality.
1938 Article 491 of the Criminal Code of this year changed the crime of sodomy to that of "homosexuality," and thus broadened the definition to include lesbian relations. The article would later be moved to paragraph 516. Its first subsection reads as follows:
1963 17 December: A young homosexual man named Wilfrido Villamar died in Quito after being shot twice by poet and diplomat Francisco Granizo, in an alleged incident of jealousy resulting from a love triangle between them and another man. The case received intense negative attention from the press in subsequent months, and figures such as Alejandro Carrión made public calls to clean up "the homosexual decay" of society. When making arrests, the police forced detainees to provide a list of about 400 alleged homosexual persons, whose names were then published in the country's major newspapers as a form of ridicule. As a result, many of those mentioned lost their jobs, while others had to flee the country.
1972 26 November: The first gender-affirming surgery in the history of Ecuador was performed on this date, although it was not made public. It was performed at a clinic in Guayaquil on a trans woman named Sandra Inés Ortiz.
1979 Recently appointed Police Chief of Guayas—and future president—Abdalá Bucaram launched a campaign of public ridicule against people he considered morally reprehensible. Shortly after taking office, he carried out a police raid in Guayaquil in which he arrested female sex workers, gay men, and trans women. He then called on citizens to take to the streets and forced detainees to walk 25 blocks from the Cuartel Modelo police station to the , while citizens who were present along the path hurled insults and objects at them.
1982 Quito writer Javier Vásconez published his short story Angelote, amor mío (Angelote, my love) as part of his book of short stories Ciudad lejana (Distant City) The theme of the story, which describes the wake of a homosexual character and criticizes the hypocrisy and double standards of society at the time, generated strong controversy in Quito in the 1980s, which led the Ministry of Education to ban reading the story in educational institutions.
1984 Guayaquil Mayor Abdalá Bucaram took part in a police raid in which ten LGBT people were arrested. After the arrest, Bucaram personally beat the detainees with a whip. August: The first case of HIV/AIDS in Ecuador is detected in Guayaquil. 4 September: In an event described by the press as "unprecedented," a group of 14 homosexual persons detained by the police appeared before Quito Mayor Gustavo Herdoíza to request a writ of habeas corpus and denounce extortion and torture.
1985 23 May: Conservative President León Febres-Cordero Ribadeneyra created the escuadrones volantes (mobile squads), a group of special police forces that perpetrated human rights violations and acts of torture until it was dissolved in 1988. Among the targeted groups were LGBT people, particularly trans women, who were often beaten, raped, and tortured by the squads.
1986 Activist Orlando Montoya was interviewed on Channel 4, where he denounced hate crimes against gender-diverse persons and the impunity regarding these cases. This made him the first LGBT person to appear on Ecuadorian television to denounce cases of homophobia. As a result of his participation in the interview, Montoya was arrested by the police. 25 December: The group Entre Amigos (Among Friends) was created. It was led by Orlando Montoya and considered one of the first LGBT groups in the country to decry human rights violations against LGBT people, apart from promoting campaigns for the prevention of HIV/AIDS. It later became the SOGA (Sociedad Gay; Gay Society) collective—later on, the FEDAEPS (Fundación Ecuatoriana de Ayuda, Educación y Prevención del Sida).English: Ecuadorian Foundation of Help, Education, and Prevention of AIDS
1989 SOGA launched the publication En directo. Boletín lésbico gay (Live. Gay Lesbian Bulletin), where it published news related to sexual diversity and the fight for LGBT rights.
1992 9 January: The Ecuadorian Police captured Juan Fernando Hermosa—known as Niño del Terror (Child of Terror)—a serial killer who murdered at least ten gay men and who had caused panic among the LGBT population in Quito.
1994 The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights required Ecuador to comply with international treaties regarding the respect and protection of gender-diverse persons, after receiving complaints about instances of police abuse in the country.
1995 15 August: The nonprofit organization Fundación Amigos por la Vida (Famivida, Friends for Life Foundation), the first LGBT organization in Guayaquil, was created.
1997 14 June: The National Police of Ecuador carried out a raid on Bar Abanicos, a gay bar located in Cuenca, where it arrested around 63 people, many of whom were subsequently tortured and abused. The case led various sectors of the gender-diverse population to organize for the first time in the country and hold events to demand the decriminalization of homosexuality. 27 August: Human rights organizations, gay men, and trans women, mainly organized through the Coccinelle Association, held a march in Quito—that ended at Independence Square—to demand the decriminalization of homosexuality. This was the first march of gender-diverse persons in the history of Ecuador. 17 September: The first public demonstration of LGBT people in the history of Guayaquil took place in the city as part of the struggle to achieve the decriminalization of homosexuality in the country. 25 November: The Constitutional Court issued a ruling in Case 111-97-TC, which decriminalized homosexuality in Ecuador by unanimously repealing the first clause of Article 516 of the Criminal Code, that is, the one that criminalized homosexuality with a sentence of four to eight years of imprisonment. The decision was published in the Official Gazette two days later.
1998 The sitcom Mis adorables entenados con billete (My adorable stepchildren with money) premiered this year. It was the first Ecuadorian television program to include a homosexual character, although it reinforced negative stereotypes. The was approved, which prohibited, for the first time, to discriminate based on sexual orientation. The first subsection of article 23 states:
28 June: The first in the history of the country took place in Quito.
21st century 2000 28 June: Around 300 people, organized by the Famivida foundation, attempted to hold the first LGBT pride parade in Guayaquil but the event was disrupted by a group of 60 police officers who launched tear gas at them.
2002 26 July: Several countries, including Ecuador, signed the Andean Charter for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Guayaquil, which recognized sexual orientation as a category protected against discrimination. November: The first edition of was held this month.
2003 23 January: Voces de la diversidad (Voices of Diversity), the first LGBT radio program in the history of the country, premiered on ratio station.