Transgender Oppression In Argentina

By Lohanna Berkins


The situation for tranvestites in Argentina is very serious. The government maintains very hard laws that police are very devoted to implement, condemning us to absolute marginalization. We are arrested at any time of the day, in any place, no matter what we are doing; we are forced to get out of taxis, kidnapped in restaurant or cinemas, and then taken to police stations where we spend at least 24 hours and in most cases are victims of violence.

For a 90% of us, the only work affordable is prostitution. We have housing problems: many hotels charge us double fare and to rent a flat is impossible because landlords reject us. Many times a girl is arrested and once free she goes back to her hotel to find out the owner took all her property and left her homeless.

We are being forbidden access to health, education and work. Ours is not an identity or civil rights claim, it's more basic than that: we are being denied the right to live. There is no law that protect us, and no strong institution either, not even so called "human right organiza- tions" take a step forward and denounce our situation.

Three years ago we founded ATA (Argentinean Transvestite Associa- tion) and from then on placed ourselves in a position to demand our rights from this perverse state. We also work to raise transvestites' self-steem, to talk our sisters into not accepting anything and everything. Fifteen transvestites sued the police forces in 1995 ... the cause already includes hundred of pages in testimonies and documents, but nothing is happening.

The media makes good use of us, in a yellow fashion, of course. Values are completely subverted in this country: if you call the media to tell them you had sex with a famous businessman, everyone comes because that sells, but if you denounce the murderer of a sister, you are rejected: nobody is interested. Anyway, it's a positive thing to have the subject already our there, that people talk about us and acknowledges our existence. It does not matter if they are against us or for us, what is important right now if that they see us.

Now we are talking about transphobia; for us it means fear of the unknown. I think people feels overwhelmed before us, we appear as something terrible, like the end of the world, and very few are courageous enough to sit with us and see who we are.

Our first big battle was inside the lesbian/gay community (bisexuals were not visible when we started). Today I can say we won, after lots of explanations and fights, we are included.

We are also starting to work on the issue of identity, we do not want a physician or a psychologist, a police officer or a priest telling us who we are. In support groups we get to say we are proud of being who we are, to have been born with a masculine organ and then have built a feminine identity. I call myself a different woman. Some people tell me every woman is different; right, but we are the utmost difference because we are physically different and we build a different life too. I can not say I am a wo- man, because I am not, but I say and I love saying that I want to live as a woman and nobody can prohibit me to do so. It's my right. The group I am facilitating right now is for people who are in transition ... the hardest part is guilt, that guilt inoculated in us since childhood.

We have started an AIDS prevention and support programme specially for transvestites. The campaign is doing by ourselves with a transvestite language and obviously aimed at our sisters. It's another step in the path to taking care of ourselves. We are aware of the risks but the subhuman conditions we live in shape our whole life. It's impossible for me to speak without taking police into account, they are the owners of my time: I decide to go somewhere but I never know if I will arrive or not, because they might stop me and I will spend the night in a police station. That is whay for us sometimes life and death have the same value. We are constantly fighting against the idea that "what is the use of organizing a support group or fighting against AIDS or anything like that if tonight the police car might take me and I might be dead by tomorrow". That is serious, really serious. It's very hard for us to envision a future, to make plans about anything.

There is an organized campaign for our disappearance in Argentina; they want us finished as people and as culture. Last year, Police Edicts were repealed in Buenos Aires but it meant nothing, no change at all. The point is that we do not add power or prestige to the authorities or the Human Rights peple, that is why nobody takes our situation seriously. The violence against us is institutionalized and every single case we bring to the Courts is doomed from the very beginning.

My activism allows me to change that pasive role of a punished little girl who is to accept everything and say yes to everybody. No: now it is us who are right, because we are entitled to our growth as human being. I see the change in my sisters, they are demanding for more and are submitting less, and that is great. They want to build new ways of being, and that is good. We do not want crumbs, we want what we deserve: to be res- pected as people with soul, feelings and a wish to live. In the Movement we have already proved we can do the same as everybody else; in police stations sisters asked me how the fight is going, and that makes me feel we are doing the right thing, opening up possibilities for the new generations. For me it is important to feel that they have not won and never will: I will die proud of having my prick and my tits, proud of being a transvestite, proud of being Lohanna. The system did a lot against me, policemen have been beating me for years but nobody has managed to change me into a bitter person.

And that is my victory.


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