Women's Activism NYC

Diane Marie Rodríguez Zambrano

1982 - Today

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Diane was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador and is a transgender activist in human rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and sexuality in her native country of Ecuador. She is currently the transgender- chair of the "Silueta X Association" and the representative of the "Observatory LGBTI of Ecuador." In addition, she has created a legal precedent in 2009 when she sued the Civil Registry in order to change her name from Luis Benedicto to Diane Marie. In 2013, during the General Elections she was the first openly transgender and LGBTQ+ candidate to run for elected office in Ecuador. Her journey in activism began in 2000 with the "Amigos por la Vida" foundation where she volunteered at. However, after some time she became the Secretary of the Foundation's president and then started to associate with other NGO youth groups. Then after some time she decided to contact Kimirina Corporation to participate as a field researcher in the " Needs Assessment in transgender populations" which portrayed the situational state of transgender people during that time. Diane developed LGBTQ+ activist rights in Ecuador while she as in college studying Commercial Engineering. However, during that time she was being bullied which forced her to leave after her second year. In 2006, with the help of "transgender project" she created a community-bases organization named "Future Community" which focuses on specialized local activism for gender identity. This organization arose from the confusion between sexual orientation and gender identity however, after 6 months the organization failed due to the governments interference.

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