Talca no es Santiago: Moral geography, rurality, and infrastructure of possibility in LGBTIQA+ violence and survival

BACKGROUND: Violence against LGBTIQA+ individuals is not limited to discrete acts of aggression. It also constitutes a territorial ecology that unevenly distributes habitability, safety, and recognition. This study examines how the statement "Talca is not Santiago" works as more than a comment on city size: it names a moral geography where reputation, social surveillance, and uneven access to infrastructure produce distinct thresholds of visibility, risk, and agency. METHODS: We used Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA) following Braun and Clarke to analyze a subcorpus of seven individual interviews and one focus group (n = 7) conducted in Talca and one focus group (n = 5) conducted in Santiago, drawn from a broader research project according to predefined criteria (density of territorial references and representation of both study sites). Reporting follows COREQ guidelines (S1 Checklist). We recruited participants through LGBTIQA+ organizations and social networks; participants self-identified with non-hegemonic sexual-gender identities, were over 18, and reported subjective experiences of violence. The analytical sample is composed predominantly of young (19-35 years) university-educated participants, with representation of cisgender, transmasculine, and non-binary identities and no trans women. We calibrate the scope of our conclusions accordingly. RESULTS: We constructed three themes: (1) Infrastructure of possibility-LGBTIQA+ life becomes practicable or precarious depending on available circuits of information, networks, and spaces; (2) Surveillance and reputation-in medium-sized cities and rural environments, social legibility intensifies daily control and shrinks the margin to maneuver, which also affects the possibility of leaving violent relationships; (3) Mobility and education as partial territorial rupture-moving for studies and traveling through urban circuits reconfigures future horizons without erasing access asymmetries. CONCLUSIONS: Within the scope of a young, predominantly cisgender, university-educated sample, territorial scale operates as a constitutive condition of violence and survival, not as a backdrop. Interventions on LGBTIQA+ violence therefore need to address territorial conditions: connectivity, information circulation, community spaces, and confidentiality safeguards adapted to medium-sized cities and ruralities.