Sandra Moran, 55, was elected to Congress as its first openly gay member in the September 2015 general election. She took office in January 2016, promising to drive forward reform to outlaw hate crimes and discrimination against the LGBT community and sponsor a ground-breaking identity law that protects sexual diversity.

“For the first time the LGBT community feels represented in the organ of government which is meant to be representative and it has high expectations,” Moran says from her modest office in the historic centre of Guatemala City. “There’s a long way to go but it’s an important start".

"Congress is still dominated by men and very conservative, but here I am." – Sandra Moran

Moran’s ascent into mainstream politics is rooted in grassroots activism. Born in Guatemala City in 1960 – the year civil war was declared – Moran grew up in a hardworking, politically active family amid violent suppression by successive military dictatorships that targeted students, teachers, lawyers, activists and anyone else they regarded as subversive.

She joined the student’s movement at the age of 14. “The repression was severe, people in the social movement were being disappeared, and in 1981 I had to leave Guatemala to save my life.” After 14 years in exile in Mexico, Nicaragua and Canada, she returned home in 1995 – a year before the peace deal ended Latin America’s longest and most brutal civil war which left at least 200,000 people, mainly ethnic Mayans, killed or ‘disappeared’.

Moran participated in the peace negotiations on behalf of a new women’s movement. In the same year, she co-founded the first collective of lesbian women called Mujeres Somos – We Are Women. “It was fundamentally a self-help group because we didn’t have the capacity to come out in public, but it helped us to become stronger.”

A few months later, Moran came out as a lesbian to her colleagues in the women’s movement. This set the course for her model of LGBT activism.

"Political violence against women is rarely discussed or recognized, but it exists, and there are no specific laws against it yet. We are proposing a law to address political violence, and it will include sexual harassment, discrimination, lower salaries and even the treatment of a female candidate or politician. I founded the Congresswoman Forum in September 2016, with the support of UN Women, as a space for women in the Congress to share knowledge and protect each other. The Forum has female members of the Congress from all parties—30 out of 158 members in Congress are women," She said in a recent interview, talking about her journey into politics and the laws she is proposing to protect women’s and LGBT rights.

"I have also proposed laws to fight violence against LGBT people and women, including one on countering obstetric violence - in Guatemala, this is not recognized as a form of violence yet. I have put forward a gender identity law, which would allow transgender people to choose their preferred identity and I am backing a law that protects girls who get pregnant as a result of sexual violence and allows them to seek an abortion. It is the first time these laws have been presented in Congress. We are also supporting laws to facilitate the economic empowerment of women, to assist the millions of Guatemalans who are immigrating out of the country, and a law that recognizes the intellectual property rights of indigenous peoples, for the textiles they produce. Guatemala needs to recognize the collective rights of indigenous women."

None of these laws have been passed. But even if a law is not passed, Moran believes presenting the law is important. It’s the first step to generate public opinion and mobilize civil society.

Fighting for LGBT and women’s rights is the essence of her life. She knows that she can contribute to change the situation and she won't give up.