Sexuality and Violence: Hate Crimes in Cali 1980-2000

This article describes and analyzes hate crimes that were identified as such by the press committed against members of the homosexual and transsexual communities in Santiago de Cali in three different periods during the 1980s and 1990s. Based on the study of these hate crimes, the author suggests some links between violence, sexuality and social order. These issues are understood as processes and social relations which involve power discourses, normative institutions and social representations that embody social control through homicide. In doing so, the author traces some characteristics of the hegemonic social order and sexuality that imply exclusion.