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Gabriela Alejandra Homann Ayala is a survivor in the truest sense, not only because at 40 she surpassed the average life expectancy for transvestites and trans people in Latin America (35 years), but also because, just a few days ago, she survived an attempted murder of a transvestite in her own home in Grand Bourg (Buenos Aires province). It was in the early morning of April 13th, when a man who had contacted her for sex work during the Covid-19 quarantine stabbed her several times in the neck, back of the head, and hands. He then attacked a young gay man who lives in another room at the back of the property and fled.

Gabriela and her friend, who was also attacked, arrived by ambulance at the Malvinas Argentinas Trauma and Emergency Hospital, where she was admitted. Days later, she requested to be discharged against medical advice to go home to her mother. “I’m just living in the moment, in this life. I have a useless hand and a hoarse voice. He stabbed me nine times, and I survived because he didn’t hit my aorta,” she tells Presentes in a very low voice, sitting on her double bed, fearing that her vocal cords may have suffered irreparable damage. The investigation has been classified as attempted homicide and is being handled by prosecutor Lorena Carpovich of the Malvinas Argentinas Decentralized Functional Instruction Unit (UFI) 21. 

The violence against Gabriela adds to the long list of acts of violence denounced by various organizations in Argentina and Latin America, where LGBT+ people, and especially trans people, are among the groups most affected by the impact of the pandemic. Measures to restrict the spread of the Coronavirus have highlighted and exacerbated pre-existing inequalities, as various organizations, such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, have stated.

[READ ALSO: Police in Jujuy arrested a trans woman for violating quarantine and sexually abused her ]

“The case is under full investigation; it’s very recent. An arrest warrant for the accused had been requested from the Court of Guarantees No. 2,” the Malvinas Prosecutor’s Office press office told Presentes. “An attempt was made to carry out the arrest on Tuesday, April 21, but he wasn’t found at his home, so it couldn’t be done. Yesterday, the prosecutor requested his arrest. However, the court has not yet ruled on the matter,” they reported. 

Gabriela's right hand is completely bandaged and immobilized, another bandage covers part of her neck and the back of her head, and she's terrified that her attacker, who lives two blocks away, will return. He's someone she knows, someone from the neighborhood, a man in his thirties, who—she says—had been released from prison three months ago after serving thirteen years, and struggles with substance abuse. "Because of prostitution, I sometimes have to deal with a lot of those guys."

"I saw myself dead, lying on the floor"

A while ago, he had emailed her under a different name and sent an intimate photo to her phone. “I blocked him. But one day I ended up answering his calls. He seemed like a strange guy. I answered again. He told me he wanted me to be his, that if I wanted, we wouldn't use protection. I told him: I'm too old for this . And this last time, that Sunday night, he had already come with some money and drugs. I told him 'That's it. If you're coming back, come back with what we talked about .' He left, he was gone for about 20 minutes. I asked him to give me the money. He said he wanted to cook first. I told him, ' First things first. I'm a grown woman .' And he started saying, 'Don't be like that,' he wanted to cook (crack cocaine). I turned my back on him and when I was off guard, he stabbed me from behind, the knife going across my throat, and then several more times. He wouldn't take no for an answer.”

[READ ALSO: Transvestites and trans people in quarantine: evictions and housing emergency ]

Gabriela says she fell to the floor and, although she felt like she was choking on her own blood (it was like American Horror Story), she grabbed the back of her neck to protect herself. “I saw myself dead, lying on the floor, I thought I would never get up again. When the knife went in, I heard the sound of the blade, like someone stabbing a piece of Styrofoam.”

While she lay bleeding on the floor, the assailant went into the other room and began stabbing her friend. “He was able to defend himself because he wasn’t caught off guard, and then he fled. My friend called 911, and the police and an ambulance arrived.”

Many years ago, Gabriela suffered another attack, this time from an ex-husband. “When he left me, I almost died of depression. When I recovered, he wanted to come back and tried to strangle me with a towel. There are men who don't accept 'no.' They think we have to agree to everything.” 

She discharged herself from the hospital because she couldn't bear to be alone: ​​due to the quarantine, no one was allowed to see her. She wanted to return home, where she lives with her elderly mother, Elsa. Elsa can't get what she saw out of her mind. "It looked like they had killed a cow. I lost my 32-year-old son, who died in a work accident. This is different, but the image won't leave me," Elsa says. 

Mother and daughter spend their days in the same room where they sleep, eat, cook, watch the pandemic news on television while waiting for another piece of news: the arrest of the aggressor.

State aid

After the attempted murder of a trans woman and in the midst of quarantine, social media mobilized. Throughout her life, Gabriela has also been an active member of LGBTQ+ and human rights organizations. These past few days, she has received many calls from her friends. Some came to her door to bring her food. Others acted as intermediaries to coordinate government assistance. 

The Undersecretariat of Diversity Policies of the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity, headed by a trans activist, Alba Rueda, sent her food modules, hygiene items and medication.  

[READ ALSO: The trans nurse facing the pandemic: “We need the job quota law” ]

“We are supporting Gabriela through the 144 hotline, the legal aspect, and coordinating with the government. There is also a valuable network of women providing care. It's a horizontal effort undertaken by our generation, raising awareness, sharing perspectives, and bringing demands to the forefront. They know what they want from the government and how to hold it accountable. And what's sometimes lacking in this emergency is comprehensive coordination to provide support and rise to the occasion,” Rueda tells Presentes. From her perspective, she says she sees officials concerned about these issues. “This is not insignificant. We need to generate action from this concern to work on a comprehensive approach to violence prevention. It's a challenge at the bureaucratic level of the government to ensure that actions are coordinated and sustainable during this emergency. Providing a comprehensive response to our colleagues from within the institutions at this time is the challenge.” 

The Human Rights Office of Malvinas Argentinas will also support her in the legal case to ensure that the incident is investigated as an attempted transphobic murder. The office director, Zulma Vela, visited the mother today and pledged to accompany her on Monday to retrieve the victim's ID, which remains at the prosecutor's office for reasons unknown. 

Gabriela was in addiction treatment when the mandatory preventive isolation was decreed. Today, following the attempted murder of a trans woman, she is receiving therapeutic support from the Front for Equality and Sexual Diversity. 

Every now and then she checks her phone, filled with supportive messages from her colleagues. She waits for news that will bring her peace. “Since I didn’t die, I said I have to live . I’m trying to do it, by any means necessary.”

A "family-friendly" municipality

Violeta Alegre – who grew up and lived in Grand Bourg until three years ago – is one of the activists who came to Gabriela's house. They knew each other from their activism many years ago. “The slogan for Malvinas Argentinas is 'the place of the family,' and you can see the outline of a family (Mom, Dad, and their children). I'm very concerned that even the municipal mayors haven't made a commitment to the LGBT community. For many years, the Municipal Trauma Hospital has been performing paid 'cosmetic' surgeries, taking advantage of the hospital's facilities. About five years ago, I remember going to inquire with the cosmetic surgery team about breast implants. They gave me an appointment, the team saw me, gave me their recommendations, but at the end of the consultation, they informed me that they couldn't perform the surgery because the head of surgery was religious and didn't allow those types of procedures on trans people at the hospital,” she says. And he states that the municipality of Malvinas Argentinas does not comply to this day with the Transgender Employment Quota Law already regulated in the Province of Buenos Aires.

“Most girls in Malvinas need public policies that improve their quality of life, and we can say that this is a problem in general for the population, but in that area it is much worse, the discrimination, abandonment and stigmatization that they experience.”

"It wasn't a crime of passion."

Gabriela lives with other health conditions and stopped treatment several months ago. For now, she's only receiving daily care for her wounds. She's still in a lot of pain, but even more ashamed: "As an abolitionist, I'm ashamed to admit that I'm prostituting myself." Since June 2019, when she was diagnosed with cancerous polyps, "I went back to prostitution and using drugs. I wasn't going out to work, but to give things away. I gave away my pride, I gave away my ego, I gave away my dignity," she says, her voice trailing off. But some of the trans fury that makes her a survivor reignites.

–"I want the truth to be known, not the lie that Crónica invented," she says, not angry but filled with sorrow. "It wasn't a crime of passion. It wasn't a former client in love. I wasn't with my partner, but with my friend who lives in the back. It was an attempted transvesticide." 

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