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By Presentes Agency

(Buenos Aires) Starting at noon, the plaza in front of the Palace of Justice in Buenos Aires was adorned with the faces of dozens of trans and travesti people murdered in the last two years. It was a demonstration organized by trans and travesti collectives under the slogan, “They are killing us for being trans people. The State is responsible. We demand justice.”

The fences surrounding the courthouse were draped with rainbow flags and the blue and pink of the trans flag. Hanging from them were the faces and names of victims of all kinds of violence. One of the most recent victims was 65-year-old Julia Ponce. Her friends and colleagues traveled from Tigre, still believing her death remains unsolved. “She was a survivor, like some of us in our sixties. We were arrested and tortured during the dictatorship. Now she’s been killed and no one is doing anything,” her friend Julieta González told Presentes.

The demonstration was organized by trans and travesti collectives, grouped under the Nadia Echazú movement. “We are here to tell the State, ‘Enough of killing us.’ What it has done to our identities is a systematic and violent genocide, which means our average life expectancy is no more than 40 years. Our sisters cannot continue to die, and on top of that, no one can know,” said Paula Arraigada, a member of Nadia Echazú. “We demand trans job quotas, but also historical reparations. And we ask what will happen with the closure of the Ministry of Health and the access to HIV medication for so many of our trans sisters living with the virus,” Arraigada added.

“Today we are here protesting hate crimes against trans people. We are the ones who are not against sex work,” clarified Marcela Romero, general secretary of the Association of Transvestites, Transsexuals and Transgender People of Argentina (ATTTA) and president of the Argentine Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transvestites, Trans and Transgender People (FALGBT).

At the event where a document was read, Romero was one of those who spoke, saying: “We have an absent state, without public policies for the trans population. All it does is create protocols to repress us. We need public policies so we can live with the rights we have achieved.” Romero said that despite the progress brought about by the Gender Identity Law, “we are experiencing setbacks, which continue to claim the lives of our sisters who fight on street corners through sex work, but who demand to be included in the public policies that we don't see. We need to be united to tell the Justice system: Enough of impunity.”

“They are killing us and the State is responsible for the deaths through action and omission,” said Melisa D'Oro.

in the demonstration in front of the courthouse—the same place where thelandmark sentence for the transphobic murder of Diana Sacayán. Among them was a group of Mothers in Struggle, members of the National Campaign Against Institutional Violence. “We are here supporting our trans sisters. The state is responsible for the deaths of these women in this slow, deliberate genocide. We stand in solidarity with the women who are also with us, united in the struggle to stop this from continuing,” Miriam Medina, mother of Sebastián Bordón, told Presentes.

One of the day's key demands was for investigations into hate crimes and for convictions in the murders of trans women and transvestites, because "the killers are still walking free and perpetrating violence against us in our workplaces." The organizers reported that, in addition to the mobilization in Buenos Aires, trans women living in other countries would deliver a document demanding justice to the Argentine consulates in New York, Rome, and Paris.

“It is necessary to denounce police bribery and persecution. We've gone back to the 80s and 90s; they arrest us, extort us, and mistreat us. We cannot go backwards; we cannot return to the misdemeanor codes that were so hard-won. It is necessary to demonstrate, to be in these places, and to be seen. To shout at these gentlemen who are there, in the courts: the prisons are filling up with our comrades for minor offenses, to whom judges give five-year sentences, while people convicted of serious crimes are released in 24 hours,” Romero stated when she took the floor at the event.

She recalled the history of struggle of trans and travesti communities. “Here I see comrades from Tigre who fought inside the dungeons in the 70s and 80s to be released. And they are still standing here after 40 years demanding their freedom, respect, and human rights back.”