This Friday (9) at 18:30 pm, at the headquarters of the Aliança Paranaense pela Cidadania LGBT, the launch of the restored and digitized collection of the Jornal Lampião da Esquina, which circulated from 1978 to 1981 and was aimed at the lesbian, gay and bisexual population , transvestites and transsexuals (LGBT) during the military dictatorship.
Ricardo Lima, Substitute Secretary for Identity and Cultural Diversity, of the Ministry of Culture, will be present at the launch and will speak about the ministry's policies in this area.
The Associação Paranaense da Parada da Diversidade, through a parliamentary amendment presented by federal deputy Dr. Rosinha (PT/PR), received funding from the Ministry of Culture to execute in partnership with Grupo Dignidade the project “Lampião da Esquina”, which had as its The objective is to restore and digitize the newspaper, in order to promote access to knowledge about LGBT cultural manifestations.
According to Toni Reis, president of ABGLT – Brazilian Association of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transvestites and Transsexuals, “it is essential to rescue the memory of LGBT culture. We have a lot to learn from our own history.”
Several personalities – some current – contributed to the creation of Lampião 30 years ago, including: Aguinaldo Silva, Caio Fernando Abreu, Gasparino da Matta, Darcy Penteado, João Silvério Trevisan, Wilson Bueno, Peter Fry and João Antonio Mascarenhas.
In his book “Devassos no Paraíso”, João Silvério Trevisan states that the Lampião was an “almost scandalous fact for the prudish Brazilian left and right, accustomed to modesty, above all. Lampião came, for better or worse, to signify a rupture”. A rupture in the sense that the newspaper was unprecedented in openly dealing with topics previously “considered 'secondary' – such as sexuality, racial discrimination, arts, ecology, machismo – and the language used was commonly the same unmannered and abused language of the homosexual ghetto” (id.).
Now, the material considered an important milestone in the “political opening” in Brazil will be made available for consultation at the Professor Dr. Luiz Mott Historical Documentation Center, located at the headquarters of the Aliança Paranaense pela Cidadania LGBT. The periodical had 01 “zero” edition, 37 sequential editions and 03 “extra” editions, totaling 41 editions.
The newspaper has also been digitized and is available for consultation online at: www.grupodignidade.org.br.
