Homophobic attack in Chaco: he was beaten almost unconscious
Franco Ramirez is 25 years old and suffered a homophobic attack from two thieves who, in addition to stealing his backpack, insulted him and beat him up.
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It was around 1 a.m. on Tuesday, January 8th. Franco Ramírez, 25, was walking home along the waterfront promenade of the Regatas Club in Resistencia, the capital of Chaco province. There, two young men intercepted him to rob him. Although he gave them his backpack—everything he had—they didn't run away: “They could have just left and nothing would have happened. But it seems they realized I'm gay and then the attack began: 'I'm going to beat the shit out of you, you fucking faggot,'” he told Presentes. They beat him until he was almost unconscious, and he still has an internal eye injury, in addition to four external stitches.
Franco, whom everyone calls “Zeta,” is a History student at the National University of the Northeast and a member of La Cámpora. Through his organization, along with a lesbian colleague, he recently joined the LGBTIQ League of the Provinces, which will hold its fourth congress in Chaco in April. The night he was attacked, he was returning from a diversity cultural event in Corrientes.
After the beating, the assailants fled. When he was able to get up, he walked home, and his father took him to a private clinic in the city. There, he was seen by an on-call orthopedic surgeon. “First, he asked me why they had beaten me. I told him what they said to me, and he replied, ‘ There’s a segment of society that isn’t ready for the freedom you’re seeking.’” And he, without hesitation, responded, “How easy it is for a hegemonic, white, heterosexual, upper-middle-class professional to talk.”
“Even though I responded, the truth is I felt violated again. Because the guy who was stitching me up was telling me that maybe it was my fault I'd been attacked,” Franco told Presentes, adding that he's seeking legal advice on how to report not only the robbery but also the homophobic attack. “I haven't filed a report yet to avoid further trauma. Because it wasn't just the robbery, but also this situation. So, while I do plan to report it, I waited until I recovered.”
[READ ALSO: 2018: an attack or murder every 3 days against LGBT people in Argentina]
“Today I was attacked, but it’s no surprise in a context of crisis of hatred towards dissidents and other non-hegemonic identities, where hetero-cis-patriarchal violence kills one woman per day and one trans person every 36 hours, and whose life expectancy does not exceed 40 years (…) We must continue building dissident and feminist memory, political and affective organization in the fight against all forms of oppression,” Franco wrote on his social media hours after the attack, his face still bruised, swollen, and with a black eye.
“It is no coincidence that in this context of continuous loss of rights, attacks against the LGBTIQ+ population are increasing (…) To each attack by the fascist right, to each attempt at discipline through fear and oppression, we will respond with political organization and collective struggle for the construction of a more just and equal society,” said La Cámpora.
Meanwhile, the LGBTIQ+ League of the Provinces warned: “(…) they savagely beat him in the face and body, making it clear that intolerance towards dissidences and non-hegemonic identities is growing by leaps and bounds, legitimized by a national government that has division and stigmatization as its most powerful weapon.
“Homosexuality is not a problem, homophobia is.”
The Faculty of Humanities at the National University of the Northeast, where Franco is studying History, also issued a statement of condemnation: “Homophobia is the product of a pedagogy instilled by the social pressure of heterosexual hegemony from the earliest years of our existence. We are raised with sexist conceptions of what a man and a woman should be, and homophobia becomes the guardian of gender. It produces devastating effects on people's lives and has negative effects on the development of nations and societies, so eradicating it is a problem that concerns us all,” said the Faculty's Governing Council.
READ ALSO Homophobia in Córdoba: He was beaten and left unconscious
Furthermore, they emphasized the existence of laws in the country that guarantee a framework of non-discrimination, even though these are not being enforced. They added: “This homophobic prejudice, which leads to expressions of violence such as mistreatment, abuse, exclusion, and fear, implies not only intolerance toward diversity but also a denial of equal rights.” They concluded that the mistake lies in believing that it only affects a minority, and that it is detrimental to “the education and free development of men and women in general.”
The statement concludes: “Homosexuality is not a problem, homophobia is.”
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