A 16-year-old trans girl wanted to use the bathroom at a party and was attacked until she lost consciousness.
A teenager was assaulted when she tried to use the bathroom at a party in Fray Luis Beltrán (Santa Fe).
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By Soledad Mizerniuk and Victoria Rodríguez, from Santa Fe
A is a 16-year-old trans girl. Over the weekend, at a party in Fray Luis Beltrán (Santa Fe), she was attacked by a group of young people who didn't want her to use the women's restroom. "You pee outside on the tree," they told her, and then they punched and kicked her until she was unconscious. "My daughter is alive by a miracle. If they had kicked her two centimeters lower, they would have killed her, the doctor told me," Sol D'Alessandro, her mother, told Presentes. Her family says that A had to drop out of school because she was being bullied by her classmates.
Fray Luis Beltrán is a town of about 16,000 inhabitants, located 150 kilometers from Santa Fe, the provincial capital. It's small, and most of its residents know each other. It's common for people from nearby towns to cross the border to participate in events. A and her family live in Puerto San Martín; the two towns are practically adjacent. Over the weekend, the teenager went with a group of friends to a graduation party held at a house in Fray Luis Beltrán.
The night passed peacefully until she needed to use the restroom. When she approached the women's restroom, a group of cisgender men and women confronted her and tried to stop her from entering. "One of the boys told her he was a man and had a penis," A.'s mother recounts. The teenager responded that she would go wherever she wanted, and that it was none of his business what she had or didn't have. "Then the girls started saying to her, 'You're just jealous because we have vaginas and you don't,'" Sol adds, explaining that her daughter went into the restroom telling them she wasn't jealous of anyone, that she was happy the way she was.
When she left the party, the group started hitting her. She tried to get away, but they stopped her and threw her to the ground, she said. While she lay there, another group egged on the attackers, and her friends tried to pull her away but couldn't. A said she remembers hearing, while trying to shield herself from the blows, someone say, "Go ahead and hit him, he's just a man."
Police took her to the Granaderos a Caballo Hospital, where she was found to have injuries all over her body. The case is in juvenile court. Those accused of the assault are minors. The prosecutor's office is not involved, judicial sources told Presentes.
The sequels
Today, A has several aftereffects from the attack, and not just physically. She has many bruises on her head, arms, and legs. “She got off very lightly. She had some dizziness, but the doctor says she’s going to recover well,” explains Sol. She adds, “Emotionally, she’s terrified. She doesn’t want to go out anymore.”
On Monday night, she traveled with her mother to Rosario to file a report against the people she recognized during the attack. They went to the Territorial Complaints Center located at 700 Rondeau Street. Now they are waiting for the justice system to act and punish those responsible so that A can receive some form of compensation. “I think those people lack love,” Sol reflects, lamenting that neither the families nor the young people involved have contacted them to apologize for what happened. However, she does acknowledge that she has received a great deal of support from all over the country in recent days.
“I wouldn’t wish what happened to us on anyone. Not on her, who suffered the attack, and not on us, because it affects us all. As a mother, having the police call you in the middle of the night because your daughter is unconscious is something I’ll never forget,” says Sol. She affirms that they will continue supporting A, just as they have since she was 11 years old, when she told them how she felt and began her transition. Now, in addition to emotional support, they encourage her to take courses, for example, to become a hairstylist, which is what she wants to be when she grows up. And above all, they encourage her to be able to return to high school at an EEMPA (Adult Secondary Education School) when she is old enough.
María Claudia Naranjo is the president of the Inclusives y Diverses association. She accompanied A and her family in their search for help. “We have a bitter feeling about what happened. We are satisfied with the positive impact the case has had,” she explained to Presentes.
She also said she hopes the measures taken by the justice system will set a precedent regarding this type of violence. In that regard, she said that the LGBTQ+ community is working to support transgender children in the region and that the results have been encouraging.
“In general, adolescence is going through very difficult times in this society. And in our community, that's experienced doubly because of everything we know most of us suffer. Not to mention in the towns furthest from the metropolises, where it's terrible to build yourself up according to your own feelings. That's why most trans and transvestite people end up going to the big cities alone, and sometimes entire families do it because it's not just the trans child who suffers, but the whole family,” Naranjo explains.
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