Following reports of abuse, a judge ordered the Buenos Aires Province Penitentiary Service to allocate an exclusive wing of Unit 32 in Florencio Varela for transgender and transvestite female inmates. It must be implemented within 20 days and will be staffed by female personnel. In a ruling hailed as “historic,” Judge Diego Agüero of the Quilmes Court of Guarantees No. 6 ordered the Buenos Aires Province Penitentiary Service (SPB) to allocate a pavilion in Prison Unit No. 32 in Florencio Varela exclusively to transgender and transvestite women inmates. He also that these individuals be granted recognition of their self-perceived gender identity in accordance with Law 26.743. The judge gave the SPB 20 days to implement the order. Agüero granted a habeas corpus filed by lawyer Luciana Sánchez, representing Otrans Argentina, who denounced the abuses suffered by transgender and transvestite women housed in pavilions 2 and 11. Pamela Macedo Panduro, an Otrans activist who died on January 1 , but that is a separate investigation being handled by Prosecutor's Office No. 9. Florencio Varela. According to SPB reports, in pavilions 2 and 11 of that prison, cisgender men who identify as heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual, convicted of sex crimes, are housed alongside transgender individuals who identify as transvestites and trans people. In prison slang, it's called the "refugee" : inmates whose conditions of detention would worsen if they shared the space with the rest of the prison population. In addition to being categorized as such, for trans people, "there is the added aggravation that they are the most vulnerable within that group," the ruling emphasizes.

"Unequal, servile, abusive and humiliating relationships"

The judge points out that the “mistake” of keeping people in the same place of confinement cis The treatment of transgender people leads to "unequal, subservient, abusive, and humiliating relationships, as documented in this case file and further detailed in the UN Handbook on Prisoners with Special Needs." The judge asserts that recognizing gender identity will automatically reduce levels of violence and improve coexistence, while raising the quality of life for all detainees and prison staff. Among his arguments, the judge states that five years have passed since the enactment of the Gender Identity Law, "a reasonable amount of time" for the State to "adapt its institutions to the requirements of the law, which is not complex. It is easy to read and understand." He then explains how the data of a transgender woman should be recorded according to the law.

Female personnel for searches of trans and transvestites

"Is a historic failure “In the country, because it recognizes trans and transvestite identity as such,” said Claudia Vásquez Haro, head of Otrans. In an eight-page ruling, the magistrate also ordered that the future pavilion will have female prison staff as a “minimum” for searches or any other measure that needs to be carried out at that location. Until now, the ruling emphasizes, trans and travesti people have interacted exclusively with male personnel of the Buenos Aires Penitentiary Service. “Irremediably, this circumstance constitutes one of the reasons for the violation of rights.”

Right to intimate visits

The court ruling also refers to “right to receive visitors”The judge pointed out that “transvestite and trans women constitute a vulnerable group who often lose their family ties and become migrants in order to maintain their gender identity, making new relationships an important part of their lives. This necessitates the State's involvement in facilitating and enabling contact with people from abroad.” He also requested that the State recognize right to intimate visits under the same conditions as people cis. In another section, the judge points out that deciding whether to admit a person to a pavilion requires a “careful, conscious, and responsible” approach. A simple declaration of gender identity is insufficient, he warns, to prevent privileges and avoid “the fox entering the henhouse.”

How will the new coexistence guidelines be implemented?

To ensure compliance with the measures, the judge requested that Otrans Argentina collaborate with the detainees in the “implementation of coexistence guidelines”; and that the Secretariat of Human Rights of the province of Buenos Aires collaborate with the SPB for the implementation of the pavilion.

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