Infamous stories, beautiful stories of gays and lesbians in Uruguay

Changes and continuities in the stigma of homosexuality

Abstract

This article comes from a study carried out through research practices at the Faculty of Information and Communication of UdelaR during 2020 and 2021 on life stories of gays and lesbians over 40 and under 26 years of age. Review some of the background on the topic. It investigates the process of losing power of the stigma of homosexuality and its resistance through the voices of the actors themselves. It is supported by the theoretical contributions of Erving Goffman, Judith Butler and José Ignacio Pichardo. It proposes some categories to understand the passage from invisibility to visibility where some concealment practices have lost preeminence; however, different forms of violence are described, from the most direct ones such as abuse or rejection to other very subtle ones such as self-censorship, some of which currently persist. In this ambivalent process, the change in new media and communication networks stands out as a determining factor due to the generation of new content that normalized the presence of gays and lesbians and allows young people to immediately encounter their peers. Many challenges remain pending to deepen the LGBTQIA+ agenda.