A Chilean soldier has come out and announced his sexuality in order to fight discrimination against gays in the military.

BBC reported that in a televised news conference, Mauricio Ruiz, 24, admitted that he was gay and is a serving marine.

The Chilean armed forces supported him, and President Michelle Bachelet supports marriage equality, but many Chileans oppose it.

Many parts of Latin America remain conservative, especially in relation to gay marriage, BBC reports.

But Ruiz wants to help change that and encourage homosexuals to not hide.

"We can do anything, be marines or in any branch (of the military). We can do whatever profession, and we deserve as much respect as anyone else. In life there's nothing better than to be yourself, to be authentic, to look at people in the eye and for those people to know who you are," Ruiz told reporters in Santiago, the Chilean capital, Wednesday.

Rolando Jimenez, president of Chile's Movement for Integration and Homosexual Liberation, told BBC that he was encouraged by the support from the military.

"(The Navy is) telling the country and the members of the institution particularly that it is possible for gays and lesbians to be part of the armed forces and that they aren't going to suffer discrimination because of their sexual orientation within these institutions," Jimenez said.

The federal government has taken steps in recent years to support the openly gay community and make it a crime to discriminate.

The attitudes of residents in the country, as a result, are changing after a March 2012 incident which resulted in the brutal assault and killing of Daniel Zamudio, 25.

The assault sparked debate over hate crimes, and in May 2012 the Congress approved a new law. The law made it a crime to discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, appearance or disability, BBC reported.

Zamudio's killers were brought to justice, four men who were jailed in October 2013.