Sailor becomes first out gay man to serve in Chile’s military

A Chilean sailor has become the first out gay man to serve in the country’s armed forces.

Mauricio Ruiz, 24, came out as gay during a televised press conference earlier this week, the BBC reports.

“We can do anything, be marines or in any branch (of the military). We can do whatever profession, and we deserve as much respect as anyone else,” Ruiz told reporters.

“In life there’s nothing better than to be yourself, to be authentic, to look at people in the eye and for those people to know who you are,” he added.

Rolando Jimenez, president of Chile’s Movement for Integration and Homosexual Liberation, thanked the country’s Navy for accepting Ruiz regardless of his sexuality.

He said: “[The Navy is] telling the country and the members of the institution particularly that it is possible for gays and lesbians to be part of the armed forces and that they aren’t going to suffer discrimination because of their sexual orientation within these institutions.”

Chile, a largely conservative country, decriminalised homosexuality in 1999, and in 2012 passed a new law making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation – as well as race, ethnicity, religion, gender, appearance or disability.

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