Just four months into the 19th Legislative Assembly, a new battle emerged to defend rights, particularly sexual and reproductive ones. The hope for greater protections for women and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and other identities (LGBT+) community turned into an urgent fight to stop more than 20 bills threatening to eliminate or restrict already acquired rights.

The adversity turned into victory as all the bills threatening to limit rights for women and LGBT+ communities were halted, according to several spokespeople from feminist and equity advocacy organizations consulted by the Gender Investigative Unit — a collaboration between Todas and the  Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI).

Organizations like Ayuda Legal, Taller Salud, and La Sombrilla Cuir confirmed that none of the restrictive bills became law, thanks to the dedicated efforts of human rights organizations.

“This was a difficult term for women. Much of the work involved defending rights and maintaining that frontline resistance against all attempts to criminalize abortion in Puerto Rico,” said Ariadna Godreau Aubert, executive director of Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico.

For Godreau Aubert, the greatest achievement was that none of the measures limiting abortion became law. However, restrictions came through executive means via a recent amendment to the Department of Health’s (DS, in Spanish) regulations to oversee abortion clinics. The amendment requires parental authorization for minors under 15 to have an abortion.

“While opportunity in public policy couldn’t be achieved through the Legislature, it was found through this regulation that literally regulates abortions for minors under 15,” Godreau Aubert explained, noting that the regulation approved by the DS was initially presented as a bill by Senator Joanne Rodríguez Veve of Project Dignity. After passing in the Senate, Bill 495 saw no further action in the House Judiciary Committee.

“They’re trying to sneak it in through the back door,” said the associate director of the community organization Taller Salud about the abortion limitations that groups supporting Rodríguez Veve’s measure pushed in the DS regulation.

According to Taller Salud, during this term there were more than 14 attempts to restrict women’s right to decide over their bodies. They know this because, aside from their daily community work, the organization also reviewed nearly 300 bills on different topics. From these evaluations, they published 72 on their electoral orientation page, “Mira cómo votan” (Look How They Vote).

Tania Rosario Méndez, executive director of Taller Salud, noted that this term, organizations like hers made a greater effort to resist measures that reduced rights rather than “achieving the approval of good measures.”

Among the legislation presented to limit women’s right to decide over their bodies was Senate Bill 693, which sought to limit the time women had to have an abortion in Puerto Rico to 22 weeks and required the DS to keep a record of performed abortions. This bill was proposed by Senators Joanne Rodríguez Veve from Project Dignity (PD); José Luis Dalmau Santiago, Albert Torres Berríos, Rubén Soto Rivera, and Ramón Ruiz Nieves, from the Popular Democratic Party (PPD); and Thomas Rivera Schatz and Keren Riquelme Cabrera, from the New Progressive Party (PNP).

Feminist and LGBT+ organizations also faced House Bill 1157, which aimed to eliminate the gender perspective curriculum in schools and was pushed by Representative Lisie Burgos Muñiz (PD). However, this measure stalled in the House Education, Art, and Culture Committee.

Another bill limiting women’s right to decide was Senate Bill 591, which, like Rodríguez Veve’s, sought to require parental permission for minors under 18 to have an abortion and was withdrawn by its authors Riquelme Cabrera and Rivera Schatz.

Among the restrictive bills presented in the House of Representatives were Bill 1084, which proposed prohibiting abortion after detecting a “heartbeat,” medically known as “fetal heartbeat;” Bill 715, which sought to make the unborn a subject of rights and was presented just four months into the term; and Bill 1410, which proposed an electoral consultation, costing $2.5 million, to determine if people in Puerto Rico recognized the right to abortion.

Other measures highlighted by Taller Salud as a risk to the right to decide included Senate Bill 588, requiring health professionals to provide the highest possible medical care to preserve the life of a neonate surviving an abortion; Senate Bill 583, which criminalized actions or omissions causing the death of neonates surviving abortions; and Senate Bill 595, which established a law for the care of women after a miscarriage or voluntary abortion, based on the premise that voluntary abortions have detrimental psychological effects. Senator Rodríguez Veve authored all of them. Representative Burgos Muñiz presented three similar measures.

In the House of Representatives, Bills 1450, declaring June 24 as “Life Defense Day;” 1407, proposing a 99-year prison sentence for abortion; and 894, requiring the intervention of at least one parent when a minor under 18 seeks an abortion, were also presented.

All these bills share a common denominator: Representative Burgos Muñiz of Project Dignity, while Jorge Rivera Segarra and Deborah Soto Arroyo (PPD) co-authored Bill 1450.

LGBT+ Community Rights

Anti-abortion measures weren’t the only ones threatening acquired rights this term. According to LGBT+ activist Pedro Julio Serrano, there were also anti-trans measures, all pushed by Burgos Muñiz.

“It’s inhumane and cruel what Lisie Burgos and “Project Indignity” tried to do with the trans community with those nine measures they presented. Fortunately, thanks to the activism of several people and entities, the advance of those measures was stopped,” Serrano said, highlighting that all were defeated in committee or left in limbo.

Legislative bills presented by Representatives Burgos Muñiz and Rivera Segarra included Bill 764, which sought to prohibit trans people’s participation in sports; Bill 768, which attempted to ban affirmation therapies or surgeries for trans youth; Bill 1740, to prohibit trans and non-binary people from having inclusive public bathrooms; Bill 1741, to deny trans people entry into correctional institutions according to their gender identity; Bill 1821, to ban drag in Puerto Rico; Bill 1852, to prohibit trans women’s participation in sports; and Bill 1889, to ban therapies, hormonal treatments, and cosmetic surgeries for trans people under 21.

“This opens our eyes to be vigilant in the next term to see how many of these measures they will try to reintroduce,” Serrano noted.

Bill 1951, which became Act 95 of 2024, was also presented, protecting students and teachers from discrimination for practicing their religion, even though such discrimination is already prohibited by the Constitution at both state and federal levels.

“That bill is completely unnecessary. First, because there is a separation of Church and State… and second, religious freedom is already constitutionally protected. So that bill is not needed. It was really a crude attempt by fundamentalists to introduce their fundamentalist ideology into schools,” Serrano said about the initiative presented by Representatives Burgos Muñiz, Soto Arroyo, Rivera Segarra, Wilson Román López (PNP), Jorge Navarro Suárez (PNP), Gabriel Rodríguez Aguiló (PNP), Luis Raúl Torres Cruz (independent), Edgardo Feliciano Sánchez (PPD), Luis Ortiz Lugo (PPD), and Jocelyne Rodríguez Negrón (PPD).

For Ínaru Nadia de la Fuente Díaz of La Sombrilla Cuir, one of the most restrictive projects presented was Bill 1821, which sought to ban drag in Puerto Rico, as its language was so ambiguous that any trans or non-binary person could end up in jail.

Bill 1821 initially prohibited “impersonating the male or female sex with clothing alluding to the male or female sex, not limited to the use of wigs, masks, or grotesque makeup in an establishment, open or closed facility, public or private, restaurant, theater, public road, or any property where artistic activities or children’s or family entertainment are held.”

“It’s good that it didn’t pass… The [proposed] law was so ambiguous that it really didn’t define things. For example, what did it mean by grotesque? What was a grotesque wig?… That would have been left to the judge’s interpretation… Therefore, it exposed any trans, queer, or non-binary person to being jailed,” De la Fuente Díaz detailed about the measure presented by Burgos Muñiz and Rivera Segarra.

However, the bill was amended to remove all references to trans and non-binary people, leaving only the text prohibiting exposing genitals in front of a minor, which is already a crime. With these amendments, it passed in the House but did not get past the Senate Rules and Calendar Committee.

De la Fuente Díaz also denounced the bills seeking to ban trans people’s presence in sports and the prejudiced and misinformed narratives that emerged. “Despite the bill not passing and despite all the hate it caused, it also highlighted certain things… It highlighted behaviors of exclusive or anti-trans feminists or transphobic feminists,” she specifically criticized Bill 1852, which prohibited trans women’s participation in women’s sports.

On the other hand, De la Fuente Díaz lamented that Senate Bill 485, which the Senate majority voted against by voice vote and shelved, was not approved. The initiative by Senators Ana Irma Rivera Lassén and Rafael Bernabe Riefkohl, both from the Citizen Victory Movement (MVC), sought to create an LGBTTIQ+ Bill of Rights and define the responsibilities of government and private agencies regarding this community.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t pass. It would have been extremely beneficial because, as a bill, it sought to provide a guide on what rights we already have as communities. It would have had much more solid definitions of identities,” she expressed.

When asked why most legislators voted against it, she replied that some believed it was about “privileges” for the community, which it was not.

Bills in Favor of Equity

Organizations also highlighted bills approved this term that advanced the rights of women and LGBT+ people.

Among them is Senate Bill 130, now Act 40 of 2021, which classified femicides and trans femicides as first-degree crimes.

“I thought this would set the pace, the legislative environment, because it was at the beginning, I said ‘well, this could be a good term for women.’ But unfortunately, it didn’t end that way,” said Rosario Méndez of Taller Salud about the initial measures of the term that filled her with hope.

When the state of emergency that women’s organizations had demanded since 2018 had not yet been declared, 2020 ended with 75 femicides, according to the Gender Equity Observatory. They had protested for three consecutive years in front of La Fortaleza (the Governor’s house and office) to demand a gender perspective curriculum, a massive awareness campaign on gender violence, and training for government workers, among other demands.

On January 25, 2021, Governor Pedro Pierluisi signed the state of emergency. Subsequently, the governor’s advisory committee for the Prevention, Support, Rescue, and Education of gender violence, known as PARE, was created.

Looking back, the executive director of Taller Salud describes the work of participating organizations in PARE as a “titanic effort” that facilitated gender training for government organizations that otherwise would not have been possible.

However, she assured that the effort lost its focus by becoming merely a “public relations” exercise by the government. Although the PARE committee was dismantled, Rosario Méndez is convinced that no positive bills for women would have been approved without a narrative change prompted by that state of emergency declaration.

Another approved bill was an amendment to the Domestic Violence Prevention Act that added economic violence as a modality. According to Vilma González Castro, executive director of Coordinadora Paz para las Mujeres, Senate Bill 865, presented at the request of Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico, was crucial to highlight a common problem observed by organizations addressing domestic violence situations. María de Lourdes Santiago Negrón (Puerto Rican Independence Party), Migdalia González Arroyo (PPD), Rivera Lassén, Gretchen Hau (PPD), Bernabe Riefkohl, and Juan Zaragoza Gómez (PPD) signed as authors of this measure.

“Legislating on that, I think, has been fundamental to strengthen that situation we saw repeatedly regarding financial control as a form of domestic violence,” González Castro explained.

Although the legislative process lasted about 15 months, Senate Bill 865 was approved by the House and Senate and became Act 74 of 2023.

On June 26, 2024, the House of Representatives approved a measure supported by more than 25 human rights and anti-racist organizations, which demonstrated and visited the Capitol for nearly a month and a half to educate about the measure. It was Senate Bill 1282, presented at the request of Alanis Ruiz Guevara, to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles in employment and schools. Senators Rivera Lassén, Bernabe Riefkohl, Santiago Negrón, Ruiz Nieves (PPD), and José Vargas Vidot (independent) were listed as authors of the measure.

“Discrimination based on hairstyles is something everyone experiences, but not necessarily something everyone experiences in the same way,” affirmed De la Fuente Díaz of La Sombrilla Cuir, who highlighted that people with curly hair, including LGBT+ people, can suffer discrimination in work environments because of their hair.

“We feel there is racial justice that is even ancestral. For all the people who have had experiences of discrimination because of our hair, yesterday was a victorious day and above all a day of justice,” expressed Gloriann Sacha Antonetty Lebrón, founder of Revista Étnica, last June when the measure was approved in the House.

Senate Bill 1282 became Act 106 of 2024 with Governor Pierluisi’s signature on July 24, 2024. Voting against the bill were Javier Aponte Dalmau (PPD), Juan Oscar Morales (PNP), Carmelo Ríos Santiago (PNP), Rivera Schatz, José Aponte Hernández (PNP), and José Meléndez Ortiz (PNP).

However, mid-term efforts were not always fruitful. A bill seeking to extend maternity and paternity leave and recognize surrogacy leave stalled in a Conference Committee in the House of Representatives, according to the Legislative Services Office. Although Senate Bill 155, authored by Vargas Vidot, was approved in the Senate, the House of Representatives made amendments with which the Senate did not concur.

According to Lourdes Inoa Montenegro of Taller Salud, this measure changed narratives and burdens “of women in the parenting process,” partly because it implied that men would also be involved by having paternity leave. “But it stayed on the drawing board,” lamented Inoa Montenegro about the Legislature’s lack of action to approve the measure.

Similarly, there was an attempt to codify street harassment as a crime in Senate Bill 326, presented by Rivera Lassén and Bernabe Riefkohl. The measure was approved in the Senate. However, a close vote of 25 to 22 defeated the measure in the House of Representatives.

Each organization interviewed by the Gender Investigative Unit has developed tools and projects to promote educated voting in the upcoming elections.

Taller Salud, for example, launched the tool “Mira cómo votan” in September, which monitors some of the most impactful legislative measures during the term based on gender issues such as reproductive justice, decent housing, and access to health services, among others. It also allows observing how each legislator voted during the term.

“In the final stretch, where we are making decisions about how to vote in the upcoming elections, our call is for women’s votes to be critical, informed, remembering who attacked our rights and who worked to advance them,” expressed Inoa Montenegro.

Similarly, the United Front for Equity, of which Serrano is a spokesperson, developed a list of candidates for the Legislature and governorship, dividing the candidates into three categories: equity allies, equity enemies, and ambivalent or indifferent to equity.

For its part, La Sombrilla Cuir is developing, ahead of the next term, workshops in collaboration with the Agenda Ciudadana foundation to promote informed decisions when exercising the right to vote.

“When voting or not voting, because [not voting] is also a right, people should be aware of… those parties and candidates who have had a track record with trans, queer, and non-binary communities over time,” said De la Fuente Díaz. She added that this track record should be evaluated by distinguishing those candidates who considered this community throughout the term versus those who did so only ahead of the elections to gain votes.

Similarly, Ayuda Legal PR has published several videos on its social media platforms educating about electoral processes and workers’ rights in case their employer tells them they cannot leave to vote.

The Coordinadora Paz para las Mujeres coalition has a podcast called “Voz de voces,” which discusses with the LGBT+ community what needs the Puerto Rican political class should commit to.

“We don’t vote just for ourselves, but also for the rights of communities, future generations, and the country we want them to inherit,” reflected Inoa Montenegro.