The day the state saw the couples

On 22 October 2015, Vicente Medel and Esteban Guzmán signed a document at the civil registry in Concepción that gave their relationship legal recognition in Chile for the first time. They were the first couple in the country to enter a civil union. Less than an hour later, Roxana Ortíz and Virginia Gómez followed in Santiago. Outside the registry office people danced and confetti flew through the air.

The basis was the Acuerdo de Unión Civil, which President Michelle Bachelet had signed in April. To give the authorities time to prepare for the new rules, the law only took effect six months later. The union was open to same-sex and different-sex couples alike. It guaranteed inheritance rights, pension and survivor's benefits, and the right to make decisions for one's partner in hospital. Same-sex marriages contracted abroad were now recognised as civil unions. However, the law made no provision for joint adoption.

For Chile, long counted among the most conservative countries in Latin America, the reform meant profound change. How far the country had come was shown by the fate of judge Karen Atala. Because she lived with a woman, she had lost custody of her three children. In 2012 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in her favour. The state later apologised to her.

An industrial dispute almost prevented the start. Civil registry staff had been on strike for weeks for higher pay. But they agreed to return to work temporarily, through the weekend, to register civil unions and marriages. Dozens of couples took advantage of this. Some came in suits, others in the traditional dress of rural Chile.

Ortíz and Gómez had been together for more than ten years and had a daughter. They had already married in Spain, Gómez's home country. In front of the assembled journalists, Ortíz called the recognition in Chile a first step. The fight for marriage would continue. In March 2022, this demand finally became reality too: Chile opened marriage to same-sex couples.