Gender-Based Hate Speech:
Contributions to the Global Policy Debate From Latin America

Against the background of a global, yet unsettled, debate about what hate speech is and
whether and how to regulate it, driven predominantly by European governance actors,
this article provides a closer examination of the experiences of Latin America in pursuing
policy, regulatory, and legislative answers. The study focuses on gender-based hate
speech because this intersects with global questions of human rights, as well as local
historical and legal contexts. The article demonstrates the reluctant approach to the
regulation of hate speech through the study of policy initiatives by the state and policy
considerations by civil society (CS) actors in Colombia and Guatemala, through
semistructured interviews with CS organizations and the analysis of 19 policy milestones.
Partly in contrast to the European approach, prejudice speech is considered a term that
better reflects sociocultural contexts and responsibility vis-à-vis a narrow focus on
individual “bad behavior.”