A young trans woman reported being attacked in Escobar

Cristina Espíndola, a trans woman, reported to the Justice that on Saturday, September 8, she was assaulted and beaten in a store in Escobar.

September 21, 2018

she was assaulted and beaten on Saturday, September 8, (Buenos Aires province). Cristina stated that she went to look for someone she had met who worked at the establishment, but as soon as she entered, someone who was there brutally attacked her.

“As soon as he saw me, all he did was hit me. He threw me to the ground, pinned my arm behind my back, and never stopped hitting me,” she told Presentes. In shock, with two cracked ribs and a bruised face, Cristina says she doesn't remember how she got back to her grandmother's house. When she regained consciousness, she went to the hospital in Escobar to be checked out. Later, she recorded a video that she uploaded to Facebook recounting what happened.

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“When we learned what had happened to her, we contacted her. We offered her support and guidance, and accompanied her to the prosecutor's office in Belén de Escobar, where she gave her statement on September 19,” Verónica Rapetti, coordinator of the Human Rights Department of Escobar, told Presentes. The complaint states that the aggressor called her a “fucking faggot” while attacking her.

The attack she suffered at the aquarium later spilled over onto social media. A local news outlet, El Informante de Escobar, not only accused her of theft but also boasted about its online harassment, illustrating its post with a photo that was unfamiliar to her and violates the gender identity law.

Flavia Batisttiol, a councilwoman from Escobar (Citizen's Unity), says, “Here in Escobar, these phantom pages are common. They're trolls; they don't identify themselves, they keep changing their names, but they're always the same people. They're used to operating in the shadows. Pattism is still around and operates from behind the scenes,” she said.

Cristina defends herself: “They’re lying from the store, saying that three of us broke in to rob it and that they recognized me from the video I uploaded to Facebook.” “Do you think I would break into a place to rob it and then upload a video? He had me on the floor; I should have been arrested when I left there,” she explains.

In the video, Cristina recounts the daily violence she suffers for being a trans woman. “I wish that just one day in my life, when I go out on the street, no one says anything to me. That no one points at me, that no one insults me, that no one laughs at me. I can’t take it anymore. I’m asking for just one day of peace in my life,” she says in the video that went viral.

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