By Gabriela Mansilla*

Photo: Presentes Archive

From a very young age, transvestite and trans girls and adolescents have been systematically expelled from their homes by their own families. Rejection of their identities due to misinformation, prejudice, or failure to respond to established mandates are some of the excuses. Or for straying from the "path of the Lord," among other forms of violence that ultimately force them onto the streets and into abandonment.

Often, their expulsion was due to their inability to bear living like this, forced to be someone they weren't, enduring punishment and repression, and they were the ones who left without any of their families looking for them. Added to this is the migration of these women from the country's interior provinces to Buenos Aires, and the structural poverty that underpins these experiences. The national state has been absent for them for decades.

The saddest thing is that the abandonment of these girls and adolescents is not a thing of the past. Many of our trans and transvestite daughters live in this reality.

The statistics from the book “ The Butterfly Revolution ,” published in 2017 by the Public Defense Ministry of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, reveal some terrifying and alarming numbers.

Age at which those who are now adults entered the prostitution system:

29.6% between 11 and 13 years old

46.1% between 14 and 18 years old.

24.3% 19 years and older.

This means that 75.7% of those who survive from prostitution do so from an age of 18 or younger.

Entry into the prostitution system is also related to educational attainment. The higher the educational level, the later the entry.

My question is: Where were these girls' families? What did the state do? Why didn't anyone record their lack of schooling? What did we do as a society to make this happen? Why does it keep happening? How can we prevent it?

What can we, as families with a transvestite daughter, do today to prevent this story from repeating itself over and over again?

"If there's a trans girl on the street, the whole society is responsible."

We need to reflect a lot; we need to realize that if there's a trans girl or trans woman on the street, it's because she's not at home or at school. She's there because no one has even looked at her. Socially, it's a designated place, a place they must occupy for being trans and transvestite, and we can't continue like this. 

All of society is responsible; we are all the ones who put them there. No one has gone to get them out of that place. What has happened to us as a society that we have failed to see the danger these girls and adolescents are in? How can we force them to suffer so much violence and abuse as children? What is happening to us as humanity?

We should unify our struggles. Just as various feminist spaces shout "girls, not mothers," we should shout "transvestite trans girls, not prostitutes," because they are simply girls.

Can we consider prostitution not a job for adolescents? Can we recognize that a minor should be protected?

Let's talk about what has always been hidden. Why does the shield of patriarchy continue to protect prostitutes? Cis male pedophiles aren't talked about. They face no social condemnation, no persecution, and no complaints. Neighbors seem oblivious to the man who goes looking for a transvestite girl. The society that historically covers up this crime is just as complicit as the State.

As our transvestite colleague Florencia Guimaraes says: who are these male prostitutes? Because they seem like ghosts, but they aren't; they live beside us. These men who go to "whores" are usually our fathers, our friends, our brothers, our partners, our coworkers. They are the very ones who consume a transvestite/trans girl.

The notion of "sex work" must be immediately erased when we talk about minors. The demand for protection from the State must be forceful. We urgently need to make our cry loud enough to make the need and the cry for help heard. Because the families of these girls no longer want this fate for them.

"They do it because they like it," they say. Really? Do you think they like it there? Do you think a girl agrees to be sexually abused by adult men? What perverse mind could harbor such a thought when talking about girls? Do you really believe that a 13-year-old adolescent, or sometimes younger, "chooses" to be prostituted? They've been robbed of everything. Because they've been stripped of love, of embrace, of their innocence, and even of their games, they've been violently forced into prostitution without a shred of humanity, much less of love and responsibility.

There are so many things we need to review, so many discourses to expose, so many businesses to denounce.

Without going any further, there is a system in place to prevent transvestite and trans girls and adolescents from standing in school classrooms, because their bodies are more useful to be sexually exploited in street corners. Transvestites in classrooms are annoying, inconvenient, and their mere presence highlights the lack of rights and exposes a perverse indoctrination.

By expelling transvestite and trans girls and adolescents, the education system becomes complicit in their eventual entry into the prostitution system.

The accumulation of so much violence leads these girls to have a life expectancy of less than 40 years.

“Let’s start by embracing them in every home.”

The reality experienced by the transvestite/trans community since childhood is cruel, even ignored by the majority of society, but today there is a possibility of changing it. It can be changed when families take responsibility, embrace, and support them; when the educational system is required to respect the laws that the transvestite/trans community has achieved; when the State listens to the demands of its citizens and puts on the agenda what had never been considered before. There is hope.

How are we going to get trans and transvestite girls and adolescents out of the prostitution system? Let's start by embracing them in every home, ensuring their families love them, and ensuring schools embrace and respect them. Let's educate and educate cis men so they don't believe they can do whatever they want with their bodies, educating a society for equal rights.

Empowering our daughters means forcing them to resist the hatred of this society. They are not safe; hatred obscures all our hope at every turn, and rage fuels our struggle, because we will never negotiate the lives of our daughters. We will try to twist the system's arm. Enough of girls going hungry, feeling cold, humiliated, stripped of everything, manipulated by an adult, pedophile world that makes them believe this is what they deserve. And the worst thing is forcing them to resign themselves, forcing them to end up believing that there is nothing that can save them.

The lack of appreciation for the lives of transvestites and trans women. This is part of the social travesticide and transfemicide. There's no intention to change it, but their families are here. They are no longer "the nameless ones," the ones no one claims, the ones forgotten since childhood. The ones they don't want to see and respect.

We will not allow the innocence, freedom, and life of our transvestite daughters to continue being stolen.

It's everyone's obligation to do something now, because it's urgent. We can do it right now. What are we waiting for? Don't be an accomplice.

*Founder and president of the organization Infancias Libres

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