Congress of Peru rejects inclusive toilet and jeopardizes OAS meeting

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The General Assembly of the OAS (Organization of American States) scheduled for October, in Lima, runs the risk of not happening because the Peruvian Congress rejected the installation of a gender-neutral toilet, said this Friday (15) the chancellor of country, Cesar Landa.

The inclusive toilet failed in a vote in the Peruvian Congress on Thursday night by 55 votes to 44, while 16 lawmakers abstained from the vote. Peru, a deeply Catholic country, is among the most conservative nations in Latin America, with disputes between lawmakers and activists over whether the state should recognize multiple gender identities or just biological sex. Currently, government offices typically do not have gender-neutral bathrooms.

The Peruvian Congress defends the signing of a new agreement to hold the meeting, but without mentioning the inclusive bathroom since, according to parliamentarians, this would imply an intervention in the domestic law on gender ideology. The OAS has not yet commented on the matter. This year, the assembly will have as its theme the fight against inequality and discrimination.

The parliamentarians’ decision provoked outrage. Chancellor Cesar Landa said the vote in Congress “seriously affects Peru’s international image” and urged deputies to reconsider their position. “Are [instalações] only for this assembly, without generating international obligations in the future”, he wrote on social media.

Earlier, Representative Ernesto Bustamante, chairman of the Congressional Foreign Relations Committee, said that installing a gender-neutral, non-binary toilet goes against the view that there are only men and women. He accused the OAS of “trying to introduce gender ideology into Peruvian law”. “[Nós] we agree with the assembly, but without the neutral toilet […]. The only thing they have to do is delete the paragraph about the bathroom.”

Bustamante is a member of the Popular Force party, the largest bloc in Congress that voted unanimously to reject the OAS assembly. The party is led by former presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, who had previously criticized the organization over an election controversy.

Fujimori lost the 2021 election by just 0.2 percentage point and refused to accept the result for weeks, raising baseless allegations of voter fraud. At the time, allies of the then candidate traveled to Washington to request that the OAS carry out an audit of the result. The organization, however, refused the request.

In line with Bustamante, Congress President Maria del Carmen Alva said she expected the assembly to be held in Lima, but without the requirement for a neutral toilet. “I understand that implementing these toilets has costs… for the government,” she said.

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