As an activist and independent scholar who has lobbied, protested, and challenged legislation in the U.S. and abroad, this paper incorporates both theoretical and lived experiences as it tackles the issue of inter/transnational queer futures in light of the United States of America’s commitment to marriage equality. The context of what was called the “sexual revolution” in the U.S. during previous decades, brought the issue of queer marriage to the forefront of scientific and media debates in U.S. America and overseas. What one learns quickly is that rights in one country does not necessarily translate to the values and rights in other countries. The widespread popularity of queer marriage in some ways moved public opinion and in some instances influenced political correctness (however partially/incomplete) inter/transnationally; yet, despite the greater verbal sensitivity found recently around marriage equality, when viewing rhetoric in law and media, queer marriage has not changed social behavior, public policy or shifted jurisprudential positions enough as to make it globally consistent.

Furthermore, as often happens in Latin America and other conservative societies around the world, the mass media coverage centered on queer issues has resulted in public overexposure that leaves queer communities more vulnerable and marks them as greater targets for discrimination and rejection. Before and after marriage equality passed officially in the U.S., queer issues, rather than stimulating, have contributed to the vulgarization of social interactions related to queer communities inter/transnationally. This paper will specifically investigate the experiences of the Peruvian, Chilean, and Brazilian queer communities and I will argue that the rhetoric advanced in legalizing queer marriage and queer issues in the U.S. has adversely contributed to a strengthening of bigoted discourse grossly evident in the aforementioned countries. The analysis of these three cases will be contextualized vis-à-vis the viability of equal rights under current constitutional frameworks, which were established by ultra conservative, post-colonial societies like Chile, Peru and Brazil. Constitutional frameworks inherited from oppressive, radical or militarized governments dominate these countries, like many others. The truth remains that though marriage equality forced these places to identify their own practices relating to queer bodies, queer bodies in inter/transnational contexts still lack basic human rights globally.