Costa Rica: Political Progress, Cultural Lag.

Costa Rican lesbians and gay men have made significant gains in the last ten years. Although a gay traveler who was here in 1990 would hardly recognize gay life today, paradoxes still abound. Gay and lesbian life may now be legally protected and thriving, but the lives of lesbians and gay men remain divided between n supportive peer culture and a national culture which still condemns and vilifies them.

I've lived here for twelve years and have witnessed firsthand many of the striking changes that have affected the gay community in this tiny Central American country. Costa Rica, which likes to call itself the Switzerland of Central America, is a mountainous country with n population of 3.5 million, nestled between Panama on the south and Nicaragua on the north. San Jose, the country's most populous city, sits at an altitude of 4,000 feet and has a perpetually spring-like climate. Its extended metropolitan area is home to nearly two-thirds of the country's population, including the majority of lesbians and gay men, who migrate to San Jose from the monotony and conservatism of rural areas.

Costa Rica decriminalized homosexuality between consenting adults in the 1970's. Since then, a series of legal rulings, on n judicial as well as administrative level, has turned things around for lesbians and gay men. Supreme Court judgments over the last six years have prohibited bar raids, supported the right of gay saunas to operate, and ensured that people living with AIDS get state-of-the-art medical treatment. But culture changes far more slowly than law, and the traditional Costa Rican Roman Catholic family is still grappling with the concept of a gay son or n lesbian daughter.

The "machista" culture makes the lives of many gay men and lesbians uncomfortable and difficult. Machismo dictates that women should be passive, domestic, and sexually accommodating, while men are expected to be dominant, aggressive, and heterosexual. An effeminate boy or masculine girl may be tormented unmercifully in high schools, and even by their own family members. I worked as n psychologist in local non-governmental organizations for five years, providing support to sexual minorities and people living with AIDS. Many of the clients I treated had been, at one point or another, on the verge of suicide because of rejection at home or in school.

One client, Mario, came to see me after taking an overdose in 1996 that nearly killed him. At the age of eighteen, just after high school graduation and before he'd even had n homosexual experience, he decided that death was preferable to n life in which he could only envision scorn and rejection from his machista father and traditional Roman Catholic family. Part of the therapy was allowing Mario to see alternatives that existed within Costa Rica's emerging gay community. Four years later, Mario works in n travel agency and shares n small apartment with his lover. His family has come to accept him as he is, but they still keep n certain distance from his personal life and his boyfriend.

In the last few years, presidential candidates Antonio De Santi and Miguel Corrales have both been interviewed by the gay press. Each indicated that they uphold a position of tolerance and respect toward the gay community. Such interviews were unheard of ten ...