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By Elena Corvalán, from Salta

Two men and three women attacked two transgender women who were having lunch. One of the women suffered serious injuries to her mouth. The attack occurred on Saturday afternoon, October 26, in the city of Salta. Later, when the victims went to file a police report, the police initially refused to take it. They only agreed to register the report when Pía Ceballos, director of the Observatory of Violence against Women (OVcM) and an activist with Mujeres Trans Argentina (Trans Women Argentina), arrived at the station.

The police refused to take the complaint.

“On Saturday, October 26, in the afternoon in downtown Salta, five people attacked two trans women, causing terrible physical and emotional harm. When they went to the 2nd police station to file a report, the initial response from the police was to refuse to take it, and then there was the usual delay in taking the report and in providing protection to victims of violence,” the OVcM reported in a statement expressing its concern about social violence against members of the LGBTI community.

The two victims of the attack filed complaints against five people. Three of them were even identified by name, one of the complainants told Presentes. Both are sex workers who operate in the vicinity of where they were attacked and fear reprisals.

What happened

In their complaint, they stated that while they were having lunch at the corner of Lerma and La Rioja streets, two men walked by and began insulting them about their gender identity. N, who is originally from Orán, confronted them about this behavior and was met with punches and kicks until she fell to the ground. “They continued kicking her there. At that moment, her friend tried to intervene and was also attacked by the men. Then, when the complainant managed to get up, one of the women approached her (…) and hit her in the mouth with a rolling pin, injuring her and loosening her teeth,” the police report states.

The other victim, A, told Presentes that she tried to "calm the situation, to stop them from hitting" her friend, when "one of the guys came and grabbed me by the hair, kneed me, and hit me in the jaw and lips. Our neighbor saved us because otherwise, they would have left us lying there bleeding." The attack left her with a bruise on her jaw and a split lip. A's teeth were broken by the blow with the rolling pin.

A recounted that this girl later joined in the attack. “She came out of the house with a stick and said, ‘You faggot, what are you doing pretending to be a woman here?’ and hit him with the stick.” “When the police arrived, we told them that she had also been one of the attackers, but they didn’t take her in. They only detained her when they went to the police station to inquire about the men who had been detained, and after the director of the Observatory, Pía Ceballos, had already arrived,” A said.

The intervention of another neighbor, who stopped the beating and called 911, prevented further harm. The victims said it was the first time they had encountered these individuals. Police identified the assailants as FC (who claimed to be a juggler) and MB, the student DMP. No information was released regarding the identities of the other two women involved in the attack.

The Observatory today sent a letter to prosecutor Horacio Guillermo Córdoba Mazunaric requesting protective measures for the victims. They also sent him a recommendation from the Observatory "to document the trajectories of violence suffered by transvestite and transgender people."

Salta: Police attacked a trans woman in the middle of the street

The complainant who spoke with Presentes said that at the time of the attack she did not feel fear, "but afterwards I did" because "they threatened us" and "since we are sex workers in that area, and since they live right there, the fear is that they will cross paths with us again, that they will come and retaliate for what happened."

Following the attack, the two girls faced police mistreatment. In addition to delaying the filing of their report, the officers refused to call an ambulance despite N's obvious injuries, and they were denied access to the restroom. They were even refused a glass of water.

"Stop police violence"

“If we don’t have someone who can speak up or someone who knows that you can’t mess around, they don’t pay any attention to us, because this happened at 4 in the afternoon and they only started taking our report at 6. They kept giving us the runaround and even the police officers were laughing in our faces,” A. recounted. She said that’s why they called Pía Ceballos, who is also a leader in Salta for Trans Women of Argentina.

READ MORE: Salta: Agreement to eliminate law that persecutes the trans community

When contacted by Presentes, Ceballos lamented that this latest attack occurred “just days before the 16th anniversary of the Pride March this Saturday (November 2nd),” which has as one of its main slogans “enough of police violence, enough of social violence.” The director also spoke about the institutional violence suffered by the LGBTQ+ community.

They are calling for prevention policies.

In a statement released today, the Observatory emphasized the importance of “understanding the structural chain of violence and discrimination experienced by people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, which has serious consequences such as transvesticide and transfemicide.” It requested the intervention of the Ministry of Government, Human Rights, and Justice of Salta , through the Undersecretariats of Comprehensive Assistance to Victims of Crime and Gender Policies, to provide support to victims in the first instance and to implement “effective prevention campaigns to reduce violence against this community.”

READ MORE: With homophobic insults, the Salta Police repressed young people at a festival

Furthermore, the OVcM sent letters to the Undersecretary of Comprehensive Assistance to Victims of Crime, Leandro Exequiel Ramos, requesting assistance for “victims of attacks based on alleged acts of discrimination and hate against them due to their self-perceived gender identity,” and to the Undersecretary of Gender, Rosaura del Carmen Gareca, informing her of the police delays in taking the women's reports, as well as “the subsequent actions taken to provide protection to people in situations of violence,” the organization stated.
Ceballos emphasized that there are many officials who perhaps don't grasp the seriousness of these acts of violence and mistreatment because “they don't know what it's like to go from place to place and experience these complex situations.”