LGBT in Latin America, 2016

Javier Corrales has a great post at Latin America Goes Global on the 10 top LGBT stories from Latin America in 2016. There has been a lot of backlash, but:

And yet, despite this heightened politicized backlash, the region scored enormous achievements in the struggle for LGBT+ rights. It held the gayest Olympic games in history, produced the first gay-inclusive peace agreement in the world, continued to lead the Global South in creating LGBT chambers of commerce, saw lesbian and transgender people running for office, and witnessed episodes in which the rights of non-traditional queer communities received some recognition. 

For these reasons, the top story of 2016 is not the unprecedented politicized backlash but rather the persistence of progress even in the face of these growing challenges. Don’t get me wrong, the politicization of the reaction against LGBT rights was a huge story. It’s just not the top one.

Indeed, often the heightened backlash occurs precisely because there has been so much progress (I even think of my home state of North Carolina). But progress continues.

One thing that strikes me about the new stories is that there is no consistent correlation between ruling ideology and progress. Leftists and the center-right are all over the map (I think it's safe to say the far right is consistently anti-LGBT).