By Rosario Marina

Photos: Legüera/Archive Presents

Between January 1 and June 30 of this year, 69 LGBTQ+ people were attacked, murdered, or neglected by the state. These 69 hate crimes represent one more than the number recorded last year, but with an additional problem: the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which have been especially cruel for trans women. 

“There are colleagues who have died from Covid and are in hospital morgues because no one is claiming them; some have no documentation, some are migrants. We get calls from the Muñiz and other hospitals in Buenos Aires to see if we know them,” denounced Marcela Romero, president of ATTTA. 

The data comes from the report of the National Observatory of LGBT Hate Crimes , created by the LGBT Ombudsman's Office of the Institute Against Discrimination of the Ombudsman's Office of the City of Buenos Aires, in conjunction with the Argentine LGBT Federation and the National Ombudsman's Office. The information they publish comes from mass media and from data collected by the LGBT Ombudsman's Office through complaints received, social media, and telephone contacts. Data is also provided by the Center for Documentation and Trans Situation in Latin America and the Caribbean (CeDoSTALC), which belongs to the LACTRANS Network.

Deaths due to absence of the State

As in the previous year, trans people are the most affected by hate crimes: 78% of cases involve trans women (transvestites, transsexuals and transgender people); in second place with 16% are cis gay men; in third place with 4% of cases are lesbians; and finally with 2% are trans men.

Of the 69 hate crimes recorded, 32 were murders, suicides and deaths due to absence and/or state abandonment; and 37 were attacks, physical violence that did not end in death.

Of the total number of violations of the right to life, 19% of the cases are murders; 6% are suicides; and the remaining 75% are cases of deaths due to abandonment and/or absence of the state.

Those most affected: trans women and transvestites

Transvestites and trans women continue to be the most affected by hate crimes. In the first half of 2020, there were 6 murders perpetrated against the LGBTQ+ community—3 targeting trans women and 3 targeting cisgender gay men; 2 suicides—both of trans women; and 24 deaths due to neglect and/or state absence—all of these were trans women.

“The number of cases of deaths due to abandonment and/or absence of the state is imprecise and undoubtedly significantly much lower than the real number, since these do not appear in the media and it is only possible to access them through the direct complaint of relatives of the victims and mostly through information provided by other trans women,” the report indicates.

One of those who suffered this abandonment by the State was Katalina Martínez Yancha , an Ecuadorian trans woman deprived of her liberty in Argentina. At the beginning of this year, she was in Penitentiary Unit No. 32 in Florencio Varela, Buenos Aires Province, when she began to experience body aches. Other symptoms followed, such as difficulty breathing, fever, and loss of appetite.

Despite the fact that all these ailments were consistent with a diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB)—a very common disease in Buenos Aires prisons—the doctors who examined her claimed they were psychological problems and repeatedly sent her back to her cell. According to the statement published by Aramis, a lawyer and activist, and Naomi Lozano, Katalina's cousin, “when they examined her, they didn't check her respiratory capacity, and the person who attended to her told her he couldn't prescribe 'even ibuprofen because he wasn't a doctor.'”

Of all the violations of the right to life documented in the report, 91% were directed at trans women. “These alarming numbers show how violence against the LGBT community is particularly targeted: it is trans women who are subjected to the most hateful, vicious, and brutal discrimination, which often ends their lives,” warns the National Observatory of LGBT Hate Crimes.

“Most deaths of trans people, not just transvesticide or transfemicide, are hate crimes because they are the result of structural abandonment by the State. This is not a recent or circumstantial issue, but rather the result of decades of exploitation, exclusion, marginalization, violence, and discrimination against trans people,” María Rachid, Head of the Institute Against Discrimination at the Ombudsman's Office of the City of Buenos Aires, Presentes

Who is killing them?

In 51% of hate crimes, the perpetrators are individuals; 49% are carried out by the State, and within this percentage, 13% are specifically perpetrated by security force personnel in the exercise of their state function, all of which constitute cases of institutional violence.

The report explains that there is a very large underreporting of these cases of institutional violence , because they do not usually dare to report them for fear of reprisals, for the need to continue working in the area of ​​the events and even in some cases due to the normalization of discriminatory situations.

“There are places where the pandemic has also exacerbated the violence. The police have been hunting us down. Every time they see a trans woman, they demand identification, they abuse them, they insult them. There's always a strong threat that they're going to issue you a citation,” Marcela Romero, president of ATTTA, explained to Presentes.

A 27-year-old gay man reported that on May 1st he was beaten and assaulted by homophobic riot police and officers from the Sixth Police Station in Río Gallegos (Santa Cruz province). He stated that while he was detained for approximately six hours, in the context of the pandemic, they broke his jaw, fractured his ribs, and left him with bruises all over his body, mocking his sexual orientation. The complaint is being handled by Judge Marcela Quintana in the First Court of Instruction.

In cases where the perpetrators are not police officers or public officials, most are neighbors or people known to the victims. The second most common perpetrators are strangers, followed by current or former partners or ex-partners, and clients of sex workers. Family members may also be involved. Only in 17% of all cases is there no record of the victim-perpetrator relationship.

Attacked and murdered in quarantine

Karly Sasha Chinina Palomino, a 33-year-old trans woman, was murdered in the early hours of March 5th in Ciudadela, Buenos Aires province. Originally from Peru, she lived in the City of Buenos Aires and survived by offering sex work, like many other trans people affected by structural violence.

The San Martín Prosecutor's Office No. 5 intervened at the crime scene following a 911 call. Karly's body was found at the intersection of Rivadavia Avenue and Granaderos Street, where the avenue runs parallel to the train tracks and there is a level crossing.

In April, Ana Lucía Lola Soraire, a 39-year-old trans woman living in Merlo (Buenos Aires province), reported that while under quarantine due to Covid-19, she was the victim of a hate crime at her home, and that someone tried to kill her. According to Karla Benítez, a fellow trans woman who accompanied her in her final days, on April 6th a group of acquaintances attacked Lola—as she is known—at her front door with a sledgehammer, chains, and stones until she was unconscious. Karla also reported that Lola had been receiving threats on social media for some time.

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.

On Saturday, April 25, at dusk, Tamara Denise Morales—a 36-year-old trans woman—was taken by ambulance from her home in Villa de Mayo, where she lived with her family, to the emergency room of Malvinas Argentinas Hospital. She was feeling very ill, and her family said she was going to undergo various tests, including a coronavirus test. She was at the hospital between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m., when—according to the hospital—she requested to be discharged and left. Her family and friends heard nothing more from her, and on Sunday they desperately pleaded on social media for anyone who had seen her to contact them. Police later found her dead .

In Reconquista—one of the most important cities in northern Santa Fe province—and where marches against the expropriation of Vicentín are currently taking place, was murdered on Saturday, June 13. He worked in a downtown store and was therefore known to most of the residents of Reconquista.

The lifeless body was found in the bathroom of his home, with dozens of stab wounds, mostly to the neck. Some puncture wounds on his hands indicate he tried to defend himself. Based on images captured by security cameras near the residence, located at 1020 Ludueña Street, the alleged killer arrived at Roberto's house by bicycle around 8 p.m. on Friday and left 11 hours later. 

The effects of the pandemic: violence and attempted evictions

“This observatory wishes to express its deep concern for sexual diversity in the current pandemic context, and in particular the special and delicate situation that trans people are experiencing. Thousands of trans women in our country are immersed in an economic and housing crisis as a result of the pandemic. According to the National Rental Survey for May, 85% of them were unable to pay their rent and 57% lost their income,” the report explains.

Although the national government has decided to suspend evictions of tenants for non-payment, and although the presidential decree includes hotels and boarding houses, the majority of transvestites and trans people who live in these places and pay daily without any contract, remain exposed to extortion and threats from landlords.

Landlords who violate the decree. According to the report, hundreds of cases were reported where landlords evicted transgender people from their homes because they could no longer pay rent. One of the most well-known cases was in the Balvanera neighborhood of Buenos Aires, where the owner of the Hotel Saavedra threatened to evict eight transgender women who lived there.

Prisons during the pandemic

In April, a few days after the mandatory quarantine was decreed, in Penitentiary Unit No. 2 of Sierra Chica , Buenos Aires province, trans and transvestite people deprived of their freedom dedicate themselves to making face masks for the prison staff in exchange for a few hours of sun in the yard.

This is one of the many vulnerabilities to which the incarcerated trans population is exposed during the Covid-19 crisis. According to data from a 2019 report by Otrans , 82% of the transvestite and trans people interviewed had no prior criminal record before their conviction. The majority of trans women deprived of their liberty are migrants (mainly from Peru and Ecuador), with a steadily increasing percentage largely due to arbitrary arrests. In this context, 73% of transvestite and trans people in Buenos Aires prisons suffer from some type of illness.

A month later, in early May , residents of the LGBTI+ wings in various prison complexes were already reporting a lack of supplies to cope with the pandemic. A report by RESET documented the discrimination and specific risks faced by this population.

At the Ezeiza Federal Penitentiary Complex I, Emiliano Santa Cruz (34 years old) spends his days with 21 other gay men in Pavilion A, designated for the LGBTI+ prison population. “We were without cable and phone service all weekend, which led to confusion. We thought they were trying to misinform us about what's happening to our friends in Devoto,” he told Presentes.

By March 30th, it was already evident : the coronavirus quarantine had exposed the underlying structural violence. The first week of mandatory preventive isolation in Argentina highlighted, among other things, the housing crisis and the precarious living conditions of the trans and gender-diverse population. Most of them work in the sex industry, and these new regulations imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic have prevented them from generating income for their survival. In many cases, this has meant being unable to pay their rent and facing threats of eviction, or, as happened in Córdoba, being violently thrown out onto the street in the midst of the pandemic quarantine.

“Covid exposed not only the lack of policies, but also the deficiency and non-compliance with the human rights of trans people in Argentina,” Marcela Romero pointed out.