Gonzalo Abarca

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Gonzalo Abarca (born May 20, 1954, in Riobamba) is an Ecuadorian LGBTQ rights activist. He helped found the Coccinelle Association, the first LGBTQ group in Ecuador to gain official recognition, and he played a key role in the movement to decriminalize homosexuality in the country.

As a young man in Guayaquil, he witnessed police abuses against LGBT people, especially trans women. In the 1980s he helped process release ballots for trans women and gay men detained in the Model Barracks, which made him well known in the LGBT community. Abarca is bisexual.

In 1994 he moved to Quito and began a relationship with a transgender woman named Valeria, which connected him to Quito’s transgender community. He continued helping with release ballots, though authorities sometimes treated this work as a paid service.

In 1997 he met Purita Pelayo and learned about the campaign to decriminalize homosexuality led by the Fedaeps foundation. Along with Estrella Estévez and Pelayo, Abarca attended meetings and helped lead the effort. He suggested the name Coccinelle, inspired by a French performer he had seen in Guayaquil in the 1970s.

Coccinelle was formed with Abarca as a founder and vice president (1997–1999). To push for decriminalization, he proposed collecting signatures publicly. The group gathered 1,000 signatures for Case No. 111-97-TC and filed the lawsuit, which was supported by other activists and Ernesto López, former president of the Constitutional Court.

On November 25, 1997, Ecuador’s Constitutional Tribunal struck down the relevant part of the criminal code, decriminalizing homosexuality in the country. After Coccinelle gained legal recognition, Purita Pelayo became president and Abarca the vice president.

During Ecuador’s Constituent Assembly (2007–2008), Abarca helped present LGBT proposals, some of which were adopted. He later worked with Famivida (ten years heading the human rights department), Fundación Ecuatoriana Equidad, and the LGBT Citizen Observatory. In 2012 the Observatory helped file a complaint with the Ombudsman against journalist José Delgado for LGBT discrimination; they later reached an agreement for workshops on LGBT issues.