Erick Iván Ortiz (Photo courtesy of Erick Iván Ortiz)

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — A groundbreaking El Salvador National Assembly candidate hopes to make history as the first openly gay man elected to the country’s legislative body.

Erick Iván Ortiz is among the candidates that members of Nuestro Tiempo, a new political party, have chosen to run in the National Assembly elections that are scheduled to take place on Feb. 28, 2021.

Ortiz, 29, has an economics degree from the Higher School of Economics and Business in El Salvador. He also studied human rights at Luis Amigó Catholic University in Medellín, Colombia, and participated in a social leadership development course at George Mason University.

Ortiz told the Blade his social activism began a decade ago with a specific focus of defending democracy, promoting institutions and transparency and young people’s participation in politics, among other issues.

“[My work] began in a very difficult context for El Salvador because it was a moment in which we were facing an attack on democracy due to the attempt to tie up the Constitutional Court,” said Ortiz. “We joined forces with different sectors of the population to make ourselves clear, and at that young age I saw myself as an agent of change.”

Following the 2014 presidential campaign in which LGBTQ issues were used in a negative way, Ortiz, along with other people who were uncomfortable with what happened, decided to organize themselves. They formed Colectivo Normal in 2015.

“The collective was born under the analysis that the problem with our society is cultural,” he said. “We have a sexist, violent and homophobic society because this is the social construction that has been made.”

Colectivo Normal has since used cultural and political advocacy to advance their cause, using the arts as a strategy to spark new conversations in order to change the narratives around the LGBTQ community. After a process of deconstruction and constant learning within the collective, members met with different LGBTQ organizations in a round table in which the Salvadoran LGBTI Federation was created.

“I have been able to train alongside El Salvador’s best trans activists like Karla Avelar, Karla Guevara, Ambar Alfaro, Paty Hernández, among other people, and better myself,” Ortiz told the Blade.

– Ernesto Valle of Washington Blade

Courtesy of the National LGBT Media Association