Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro recently faced extreme public comment about being accused of entertaining an affair with a transgender newscaster. Petro has now responded, and what he said has taken many by surprise.
During this time, Petro was on a trip to Panama, which he attended to celebrate Jose Raul Molino, Panama’s new president. Based on accusations, Petro was seen on the trip accompanied by transgender newscaster Linda Yepes. Aside from not denying the affair, he has made it clear to the public that the transphobic comments being made do not harm him but only shamelessly prove the limited mindset society has brought upon itself by not detaching from ignorant beliefs.
Petro responded on X “I have always considered that intimacy is the ‘last level’ of freedom, the last trench of being free, and I will preserve this principle until I write about myself or die.”
The accusation initially started after Spanish TV network Telemundo reported a public video in which two people, assumed to be Petro and Yepes, walked together hand in hand and took pictures. Although neither of them has confirmed the accusations, Petro was publicly open about his line of thinking after reading the transphobic remarks online.
“Every progressive knows that human beings are equal and that the fight for that equality implies physical and mental emancipation and therefore, no one who considers themselves human can generalize transphobia in weak minds or slavery and discrimination. This action does not express animality but brutality. That’s why they murder those who are different and by the millions. That is why Nazis existed and exist,” Petro adds to his post.
Yepes spoke about her challenges as a trans person and society’s limited beliefs that led her to believe a successful future was not attainable. “I kept saying to mysel,f If I am trans, I’m either going to be a hairstylist or a prostitute because those are the only paths society has practically handed to us,” she told The Daily Beast. Disregarding negative stigmas, Yepes is the first openly transgender TV anchor in Colombia.
Petro and his wife have been married since 2000, and aside from the latest scandal, he has not been accused of having other affairs. He closed off his X post, saying, “I am heterosexual, but you will never hear or read a transphobic word from me. Because not only would he stop being a man, but also human.”
Featured image courtesy of Luisa Gonzalez/ Reuters
