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the report.

Increased violence

“In general terms, incidents of violence against the LGBT community have increased,” states María Rachid, head of the Institute Against Discrimination at the Ombudsman's Office of the City of Buenos Aires and general secretary of FALGBT. She explains that the promotion by the State and the media of values ​​related to intolerance, discrimination, and the rise in institutional violence is one of the causes: “These messages fuel violence and translate into events we experience every day, like the case of the boy discriminated against on the bus.”

[READ ALSO: #HateCrimes2017 Drastic increase in street attacks in Argentina]

For Rachid, there has also been a higher rate of complaints in recent years, especially since the passage of the equal marriage and gender identity laws. “That made people feel they could go to certain places to report situations of discrimination,” she says. However, she warns: “The risk is that if institutions don't respond to complaints, there could be a setback in the future and generate the opposite effect: the lack of response stems from budget cuts to these organizations. This is the case with INADI, which hasn't been updated in the last two years.”

 
“To think that today, after so much struggle we've waged in the LGBT community, there are still people who violate, harass, and punish others simply for having a sexual orientation or gender identity that differs from the norm is truly horrifying; it's infuriating and deeply painful,” emphasizes Vanesa Calderón, coordinator of the Observatory. She explains that all the cases documented were committed with the aggressor's prior knowledge of the victim's sexual orientation or gender identity. They have involved the exercise of violence with the intention of infringing rights, causing physical or psychological harm and/or punishing; and the motivation has been rejection, contempt, hatred.

Trans people, the most vulnerable 

Of all LGBT individuals who were victims of hate crimes and registered in the report, the highest percentage corresponds to trans women (transvestites, transsexuals, and transgender people) at 58% of cases, followed by cisgender gay men at 30%, lesbians at 9%, and trans men at 3%.
"Argentine security forces and prison services demonstrate particular cruelty and hatred toward the trans women community. This manifests itself in the disregard for their self-perceived identities—mockery, insults, and denigration—arbitrary arrests with fabricated legal cases, the criminalization of sex work, the demand for bribes or free sexual services, persecution, harassment, degrading and inhuman treatment, rape, and torture, both in public and in police stations and prisons," the report states. Marcela Romero, president of the Argentine LGBT Federation and a leading figure in the ATTTA National Network, adds: “The State owes a debt to the trans population after decades of persecution and silence. The Observatory makes visible what already happens to us on a daily basis: we are discriminated against, we are subjected to violence, we are murdered.”

 

The stories behind the numbers

Pamela Tabares was a 35-year-old trans woman from Rosario. In the early hours of Wednesday, July 26, 2017, she was murdered with at least six gunshots. She was a sex worker and had gone out to the red-light district that night. Her body was found on a rural road near the town of Pérez. In January, and again the day before her murder, Pamela had gone to the Women's Police Station to file a report, but it was not recorded.
Ayelén Gómez was 31 years old. Her body was found on August 12, 2017, under the stands of the Lawn Tennis Club in Tucumán, with bruises and signs of asphyxiation. She had returned to her province to reunite with her mother, with whom she lived, after spending several years in Buenos Aires.
Azul Montoro was 23 years old and was stabbed to death in a boarding house in the city of Córdoba on October 18, 2017. She was a sex worker and was looking after a room for a friend.
Pamela Macedo Panduro, Angie Velázquez Ramírez, Brandy Bardales Sangama, and Damaris Becerra Jurado died in 2017 due to the conditions of their detention, from not receiving adequate food for their health conditions or medical attention for their chronic illnesses. All of them were transgender migrant women, deprived of their liberty.
These were some of the high-profile cases in a series of brutal murders of trans women last year, deaths resulting from state neglect.

Recommendations to the Argentine State

“The current precarious situation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, a landscape of multiple exclusions and rights violations that this population experiences daily, highlights the urgent need for effective public policies that demonstrate the Argentine State’s commitment to this historically vulnerable population and allow for a shift from legal inclusion to real social inclusion,” states the final section of the report. It lists 19 demands to the State for the enactment and updating of laws that could not only curb and reverse these rates of violence but also provide genuine opportunities for a life of full rights and equality for LGBTI people. These demands include a comprehensive reform of the national law against discriminatory acts; the final enactment of a comprehensive law for transgender people that guarantees access to all rights; and the enactment of a national law establishing employment quotas for transgender people in the public sector and tax incentives in the private sector to promote their inclusion in the workforce. The passage of a law guaranteeing the secular nature of public education and a law on autonomous sex work to include sex workers in the labor system, guaranteeing their rights as workers and protecting them from abuse and discrimination. Rachid concludes that the most urgent thing is "that the National Anti-Discrimination Bill, which has been reintroduced in Congress, be a real opportunity to guarantee access to justice in cases of hate crimes against LGBTI people." And she explains: “It will also allow us to strengthen public awareness campaigns aimed at preventing hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people and promoting a culture of respect and equal opportunities.” Similarly, Marcela Romero concludes: “Sustained work on public policies related to sexual diversity throughout the country is a path we have built through the activism of LGBTQ+ organizations and civil society, although we understand that there is still much to be done to achieve the true equality we all want. We continue working for full equality of opportunity and against all forms of violence.” Download the full report here. Source: National Observatory of LGBT Hate Crimes