FIRST GAY MARRIAGE IN ECUADOR

PRESS RELEASS

Quito, Septermber 6, 2010: HUGO VERA, Ecuadorian GLBTI activist, age 23 and JOEY HATELEY, British activist, age 34, will marry on the premises of this city’s Civil Registry on November 23rd of this year. The engagement was announced on September 4th at the gay discotecque “Blackout”, in Quito by way of an artistic presentation by HATELY, publicly dedicated to his fiancé in the name of alternative families and subversive, political and multiple relationships. This is the first gay marriage to be celebrated legally in Ecuador and it will be possible thanks to the fact that one party was born female. In spite of having transformed his body to become a man, and legally having a male name, HATELY’s national identification document still mentions his legal sex as “female.”

The couple, busy preparing for the wedding, claim they are getting married for four reasons:

1. Because they believe that to enshrine MARRIAGE as an option exclusive to HETEROSEXUALS and to relegate GAYS to DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP is to create an APARTHEID in which there are first class and second class citizens. It emphasizes a reductionist and commercialized view of what constitutes a diverse family.

2. Because they want to celebrate that the discriminatory law that has denied HATELY his right to change the sex on his documents is the same law that today has no choice but to grant him the right to marry a man.

3. Because the under the protection of marriage, they want to overcome the obstacles usually faced by a couple with different nationalities regarding issues of residence, and benefit from the protection of their “diverse family”: Hugo is the father of a four year old girl and he plans, in the future, to have at least one additional child with Joey.

4. Because they want to remind society that there are not only men and women but also transgender people. Therefore, they contend, the law must evolve and begin to recognize all different types of identities and bodies.