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Alma Fernández, a trans activist, mourns her friend Ayelén Gómez, murdered in San Miguel de Tucumán. There, they experienced the first chapters of the structural poverty that plagues the trans community, and the exclusion that persists even after violent death. "Ayelén couldn't even vote in the primaries; no one cared about her anymore, no one paid her any attention."

By Alma Fernández Photos: Ariel Gutraich

This Sunday, Ayelén Gómez was also unable to vote in the primaries; no one cared about her anymore, no one paid her any attention. She had also been unable to access free public education until she finished her studies, to reclaim her surname and escape the structural poverty that so relentlessly plagues our beloved trans and travesti community. Resigned to falling and swelling the enormous, endless list that keeps adding more names. Names that, despite the painful end of our lives, still sparkle, refusing to be forgotten in a corner, as happened to us in life. Ayelén Gómez also never had the chance to have even a single job interview in her life. Much less access to employment, neither in the public nor the private sector. Yet another who didn't surpass the life expectancy that grows shorter every day. I met Ayelén when she was thirteen years old. A beautiful child, as a young girl she was forced into prostitution, like so many of our children cast out onto the streets. At the time, her family couldn't handle that reality, much less nurture this new flower that was blooming. We took her with us. We lived in the Samore neighborhood of Tucumán, in a small, wood-paneled house. We set her up on the sidewalk thanks to the decision of the neighbors. We all always knew: unity is strength, and together we are unstoppable . We taught her how to dress, how to put on makeup, how to navigate the art of transvestism. Without knowing the political weight and the struggle being built alongside the greatest leaders, those who knew that we are citizens and that we needed to win those rights to live with dignity. Without considering what was happening outside the community, much less what it meant to survive every night. In those days, we were girls, sisters, and mothers. And the age difference didn't matter to us; it wasn't that great.

The same photos that nobody condemns

[READ MORE: Transvesticide in Tucumán: Ayelén Gómez was found at the Lawn Tennis Club ]

On Saturday night, August 12th, I was preparing for the 2017 PASO primary elections. For the first time, for me and my community, we were on the ballot to be the first transvestite and transgender candidates in our country's electoral history. As soon as I heard the news that Ayelén had been murdered in Tucumán, the first thing I saw was that photo.

The same photos that no one condemns, we've been seeing lately of each of our murdered comrades. Images of violated bodies thrown into a void where they continue to be violated.
The same photos: Ayelén Gómez in Tucumán, Pamela Tabares in Rosario (almost three weeks ago), Evelyn Rojas in Misiones, and so many more. These are normalized photos that neither we nor anyone in the collective or in feminism protests, neither internally nor externally.

How cruel and dark are the scenes where the bodies of transvestites and trans people are dumped. How terrified I am of vacant lots, the stands of clubs, or the abandoned factories where my sisters are killed.
The memories of my comrades all fit into a single song, while in my mind I slowly piece together that cemetery of names that Aunt Marlene Wayar speaks of so often. I condemn the sinister media outlet that continues to show those mutilated bodies of my sisters. Consolation and pain are not enough, much less do they end.

These days, in the solitude of my room, I have slowly been gathering and piecing together the fragments of my dear friend Ayelén Gómez. In this same room that sometimes I can't afford. This is where the social transvesticide begins to tear me apart.
Surely the same media outlet that previously showed my mutilated sisters will now try to talk about addiction, attempting to deflect attention from the State's historical abandonment of all the Ayelén Gómezes in the country. As I gather my remnants amidst so much depression, we no longer want to be this society, just as Susy Shock shouts.

*Alma Fernández was born in Tucumán and lives in Buenos Aires. She is an activist, a graduate, and a member of the team at the Mocha Celis Trans Popular High School. She was a pre-candidate for national deputy in the primary elections for the Ahora Buenos Aires list, one of the lists that participated in the Frente Unidad Porteña coalition. 

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