Map of hate crimes in Argentina 2019
An updated map of hate crimes against LGBT+ people and social transvesticide during 2019.
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[News updated on June 10]
2019 began with violence against LGBTI+ people in Argentina. Agencia Presentes reported at least 10 hate attacks and two transphobic murders. Furthermore, trans and travesti organizations that collect data confirm that in the first 40 days of the year there were at least fourteen social transphobic murders. These are trans and travesti people who died as victims of social exclusion and lack of access to basic rights such as healthcare (many die from treatable illnesses), education, employment, and housing.
Map of hate crimes in Argentina in 2019
Transvesticides
[27.01.2019 – SALTA]
The young trans woman died after three months in a coma following a hate attack.
Antonella Mirna Di Marzo, a 30-year-old trans woman, died in the early hours of January 27 as a result of a brutal hate crime, after spending three months in a coma. She had been unconscious in intensive care since October 21, when she was attacked by a man outside the Caribe nightclub in General Güemes (50 kilometers from the city of Salta).
[03.02.2019 – PROVINCE OF BUENOS AIRES]
Laly Heredia, a 36-year-old trans woman, was murdered on Camino de Cintura.
Laly Heredia was a 36-year-old trans woman. She was killed by a gunshot to the hip on February 3, but she had been shot several times before that.
[28/5/2019 TUCUMÁN]
Transfemicide in Tucumán: Gala was 19 years old and was killed by her partner
Gala Estefanía Perea, a young trans woman from the town of Famaillá in Tucumán province, was found dead in her partner's home in the city of Lules, also in Tucumán. Gala was 19 years old and was in a relationship with Víctor Ezequiel Natalio Martínez. "It was an abusive relationship, but she was very much in love and covered for him," psychologist Verónica Figueroa from the Secretariat of Gender, Violence, and Women, which is part of the Famaillá municipality, told Presentes.
Hate attacks against LGBT people
[10.5.2019-BUENOS AIRES]
Yesica Freytes was struck on the head with an iron bar while being called a "lesbian whore." The attack occurred on Tuesday, May 5th, at her mother's house in Villa Ballester, Buenos Aires province. It began during a family argument and left Yesica with a skull fracture requiring twelve stitches.
[3.5.2019- TUCUMÁN]
In San Miguel de Tucumán, Lucas Mathias Gargiulo, a 24-year-old trans man, reported yesterday at Avellaneda Hospital that he was attacked, robbed, and raped on May 1st while returning home. The police station refused to take his rape report.
Attack and rape of a young trans man: “We’re going to make you a man”
[18.4.2019-SALTA]
A police officer assaulted a 23-year-old transgender woman in the city of Salta, leaving her with bruises and a laceration on her head. The attack occurred on Wednesday, April 17, around 1:30 p.m., on San Martín Avenue at number 2800, in the Islas Malvinas neighborhood, near the tourist-friendly Mercado Artesanal (Craft Market).
Salta: Police attacked a trans woman in the middle of the street
[26.03.2019 – SANTA FE]
Two young men testified at the Provincial Directorate of Internal Affairs of Santa Fe—a citizen oversight body for the police—that officers subjected them to harassment, beatings, and insults in a “small room” at the 12th police station in Santo Tomé, in the early hours of Monday the 25th. Similar cases are being investigated at the same location.
Santa Fe: Gay couple arrested and tortured at police station
[05.01.2019 – CORDOBA]
Homophobia in Córdoba: He was beaten and left unconscious
Pablo Dell'Oso (24) was dancing with his friends on Saturday, January 5th, at the Nabisco nightclub in Villa Rumipal (Córdoba), when three boys who had been watching them approached. They started insulting him and then beat him until he was unconscious.
[07.01.2019 – RIO NEGRO]
Pepper spray and beating of LGBT youths at a bowling alley in El Bolsón
Just hours before the end of the 11th annual El Bolsón Diversity Festival (Río Negro), a group of young gay men and lesbians were insulted, beaten, and ultimately expelled with pepper spray from the Absentha nightclub. Several ended up in the hospital, where they were initially denied medical attention. Six complaints have already been filed at Police Station 12. One of those attacked was Cristian Godoy, who covered the Festival for Presentes.
[08.01.2019 – CABA]
Attack on trans activist in San Telmo
Trans activist Lara María Bertolini reported that she was attacked on Tuesday night, January 8, in Parque Lezama, downtown Buenos Aires, by a young man who insulted her while she was walking her dog and then, from behind, threw a bottle that opened her head and escaped in a car.
[08.01.2019 – CHACO]
Homophobic attack in Chaco: he was beaten almost unconscious
On Tuesday, January 8, around 1 a.m., Franco Ramírez (25) was walking home along the waterfront promenade of the Regatas Club in Resistencia, the capital of the Chaco province. There, two young men intercepted him to rob him. Although he gave them his backpack—everything he had—they didn't flee: “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 the four external stitches.
[19.01.2018 – CORDOBA]
Homophobic attack in Capilla del Monte
On Saturday, January 19, at 2:30 a.m., Brian David De los Santos (24) and Leonardo Vargas (21) were victims of a homophobic attack after leaving a bar in downtown Capilla del Monte (Córdoba province) where they had dinner with a friend. Both live, work, and study in the city of Córdoba and were spending their vacation in their hometown, one of the tourist attractions of the Punilla Valley in the Sierras Chicas mountain range of Córdoba.
[19.01.2019 – LA RIOJA]
A police commissioner attacked a trans woman
On Saturday, January 19, Billy Molina had gone with friends to a chaya celebration at the Tiro Federal club in the city of Chamical, in the province of La Rioja. The party was winding down, the place was starting to empty out, and while she waited for her friends to leave, a man approached her. Without saying a word, he grabbed her arm, dragged her out of the club, and hit her. He then fled on a local police motorcycle.
[26.01.2019 – SALTA]
In the city of Salta, a transgender teenager was arrested in the early hours of Saturday, January 26, as she left Jekill, a gay bar. María Pía Ceballos, director of the Observatory of Violence Against Women and a leader in the LGBTIQ community, told Presentes that during the operation, the police “humiliated, mistreated, and beat her.” She was accused of theft, although the person who filed the complaint later recanted. Furthermore, a judge ordered the young woman to be held in a men's prison.
[30.01.2019 – TUCUMÁN]
A young gay man was attacked by his neighbor with a brick: he was beaten until he was disfigured.
Juan Zelaya, 35, has been hospitalized since Wednesday, February 30, after being attacked by his neighbor, Dante Daniel Vanucci. His family went to file a report at the 10th Police Station, but initially, they refused to take it. However, the police did defend the attacker's house when a group of neighbors confronted him. He also did not receive proper medical attention.
[03.02.2019 – MENDOZA]
Beating of writer Juan Solá: “We’re going to make you shit yourself for being a faggot”
Juan Solá is a well-known writer and a prominent LGBT+ figure in the literary world. Early Sunday morning, he was at a nightclub in the city of Mendoza with his friend Maru Leone when he was assaulted by security personnel. They locked him in a room for an hour, beat him, and hurled insults at him, saying, “We’re going to make you shit yourself, you faggot.” Solá reported the incident twelve hours later to Prosecutor's Office 1 as “unlawful deprivation of liberty and assault.”.
Social transvesticides
[24.01.2019 – ENTRE RÍOS]
Authorities are investigating the death of a trans woman in Paraná; she was 33 years old.
On January 24th in Paraná, a neighbor found the lifeless body of Jésica Benavídez, a 33-year-old trans woman. She eked out a living as a sex worker and lived in extreme poverty. Her colleagues called her “La Nicky.” She was originally from Santa Elena (La Paz) and had arrived in the capital of Entre Ríos province more than 10 years ago.
The silenced victims
Given the lack of official data on transvestite and trans deaths, organizations and activists keep a list documenting both violent deaths (transvesticide) and deaths caused by exclusion (social transvesticide: lack of access to basic rights such as education, health, work, housing, employment; most of these deaths are linked to diseases from which other populations do not die prematurely).
“They are seven murdered butterflies, killed by a system of prostitution, by the negligence of a State absent in applying necessary public policies and a society complicit in continuing to foster hatred towards this population,” wrote trans activist Jennifer Aranda on her wall.
In addition to Jessica, the following are also on that list, which is not reported in the media but is compiled from among activists:
JANUARY 2019
2. Mariana Quinteros, 48 years old. La Rioja. Died on January 1st, due to illness.
3. Jessica Paola Ochoa, 36 years old. CABA. Died on January 4th, she suffered from several illnesses
4. Carolay, CABA. Died on January 15.
5. Yamile, CABA, 24 years old. Died on January 17th from illness, she lived on the streets in Constitución.
6. Sandra Cantero, Reconquista, Santa Fe. Died on January 19.
7. Gabriela Farias, Lomas de Zamora, Bs As. Died on January 23, cause: illness.
8. Yesica Neira, 56 years old. Comodoro Rivadavia. Died on January 25, due to illness.
9. Luciana Anahi, 28 years old. She lived in CABA (originally from Güemes, Salta). She died on January 27th from illness.
FEBRUARY 2019
10. Polaca Chaparro, Santiago del Estero, over 60 years old. She was the oldest trans woman in Santiago del Estero and an icon of the carnival troupe in the 1970s in her province. She died on February 6th, from illness.
11. Marimar Flores (Bella Fasabi), 29 years old. Originally from Peru (Pucallpa), she lived in Mar del Plata. She died on February 7th, from illness.
12. Nicol Estrella Figueroa, 22 years old. Originally from Peru, she lived in Avellaneda (Buenos Aires province). She died on February 7th, from illness.
13. Zoe Caucota, 33 years old. Florencio Varela. Died on February 8, from peritonitis.
14. Tania Brizuela, 32 years old, city of Córdoba. She died on February 9th from health-related causes, including lack of access to medication.
15.
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