Manuel Tzoc was six when he and his family emigrated from Totonicapán in Western Guatemala to the country’s capital, Guatemala City. Tzoc, who calls himself Manu, is Kʼicheʼ Maya, part of the Indigenous Mayan people from the midwestern highlands of Guatemala. But over time, Manu and his family found their Indigenous culture erased as they tried to integrate into the capital, where most people speak Spanish, wear Western clothing and have a different culture.

Now 38, Manu still lives in the heart of Guatemala City, a spot rife with queer folks from around the country who struggle to fit in. A visual artist and poet, he is reconnecting with his Indigenous roots—a part of his identity he says is inextricable from his sexual and gender identity as a queer.

It’s at the intersections of Manu’s identity that so much of Guatemala’s problematic history with both Indigenous and queer communities comes to light. Once the heart of the Mayan world, Guatemala is a multiethnic and multicultural country—the most populous Central American nation, with a history of Spanish colonization, military regimes and civil war. Almost half of its population is Indigenous, and this diversity translates into a multiplicity and a complexity of realities for queer Guatemalans. One thing they all have in common is the constant struggle to exist and be accepted.

As a result, LGBTQ Guatemalans often find themselves fighting on all fronts: Against a government that does not grant them their most basic rights and protection, against a traditional and religious society that marginalizes them and against their own divided community that rejects a lot of its members who do not fit the dominating standards. “Guatemala is a violent and macho country. A country dominated by the military, religion and narcos. A country that brings on a constant fight for queer people,” Manu says. Read more via Xtra