MEXICO CITY. On Friday, April 15, Paulette and Coletti, after an afternoon with friends watching a movie, went into the restroom at the Cinemex theater in the Reforma 222 shopping center (Mexico City), where an employee asked them—disregarding their gender identity—to leave the restroom. The theater management did not implement any discrimination protocol. More than 1,000 kilometers away, Drew, a non-binary person, was removed from the restroom with transphobic insults and threatened by an employee at Plaza las Palmas, located in downtown Cancún.

These acts of discrimination against trans and non-binary people are not isolated incidents. In Mexico, 51% of trans and non-binary people have experienced being denied access to restrooms that align with their gender identity, according to the National Survey on Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity ( ENDOSIG, 2018 ) conducted by the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (CONAPRED ).

“Violent incidents in restrooms are ongoing. It’s something that we at the Trans Youth Network call the costs of transphobia . It’s a systematic thread where moral panics exist within society, where the State doesn’t work to dispel them, and a culture of respect for prevention isn’t fostered within companies. This situation in restrooms demonstrates that material and symbolic spaces are divided by cisgender men and cisgender women,” commented Jessica Marjane, lawyer and coordinator of the Trans Youth Network Presentes .

“What we experienced was an act of discrimination.”

Presentes spoke with Paulette, who prefers to omit her last name so as not to provide more personal information, since as a result of the complaint that she and her friend Coletti made on Twitter they have received threats and digital harassment.

“What we experienced was an act of discrimination: we were kicked out of the women’s restroom (…) We went into the Cinemex restroom and an employee asked us to leave because there were women with their children, which is false. In the restroom, there were only my friend and me and a couple of women who even helped us. I was so angry that I went out to ask for help… I begged them, I really begged them, and they refused to help us. The manager literally told me, ‘Well, file a complaint against Cinemex.’ I mean, I shouldn’t have to be begging for something that I’m entitled to,” Paulette commented in an interview with Presentes.

Paulette and Coletti have already initiated various legal processes to defend themselves and also received support from the Council to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination in Mexico City (COPRED). 

Cinemex called it a “misunderstanding”

Cinemex issued a statement on its social media accounts, which it later deleted. In the message, they described as a “misunderstanding” what Paulette and Coletti experienced when they were expelled from the restroom and mistreated by one of their employees.

“We offer our apologies to the entire community that felt offended by the misunderstanding at one of our complexes in Mexico City. We are committed to improving our policies of respect,” the statement read.  

According to its values , Cinemex claims to be a company that treats people with dignity, courtesy, and tolerance. In this section, it adds: “We recognize at all times the rights, freedoms, and qualities inherent to the human condition and its dignity. We communicate clearly and with sound reasoning, always in a respectful tone towards others. We speak positively about people, avoiding any kind of offensive or derogatory comments, without distinction based on individual characteristics or hierarchical level.”

For Paulette, the treatment she and her friend Coletti received was contrary to Cinemex's stated standards. "The treatment was discriminatory, completely unresponsive, and mocking." 

Presentes contacted Cinemex and the management of the branch located in the Reforma 222 shopping center through various channels, and so far there has been no response.

Discriminatory speech and digital violence

Following their complaint on social media, Paulette and Coletti were victims of online harassment. Among those who perpetrated this violence was América Rangel, a member of the PAN party (a conservative political party), who used a fake tweet supposedly written by the official Cinemex account that criminalized trans women. The tweet was proven false because it exceeded the character limit of the social media platform. 

Furthermore, Paullette and Coletti received death threats and were transphobic and prejudiced rhetoric perpetuating the false myth that trans women are dangerous to cisgender women if they use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity. Coletti's image was even used to deny trans women the right to use women's restrooms.

“I truly feel violated by this situation. Imagine the magnitude of this event; that congresswoman’s hate speech could escalate into a physical attack in the street. Because photos of my friend are circulating, they can locate us and harm us. These are the repercussions of such rhetoric. My friend is very affected, and so am I, to the point that it took almost a week before I could leave my house with any peace of mind,” Paulette told Presentes .

A story that repeats itself at Reforma 222

In November 2015, Jessica, Lia, and Alessa tried to enter the women's restroom. They were unsuccessful because several security personnel at the Reforma 222 shopping center denied them entry.

“We were not guaranteed justice in the first and second instances, we experienced revictimization by the civil authorities, they asked us to prove our gender identity, what genitals we were born with, and their response was that the security personnel of Reforma 222 protected the women,” Jessica recounts in conversation with Presentes .

For Jessica, the repetition of an act of discrimination and violence like the one she experienced alongside Lia and Alessa (murdered in 2016, a transfemicide that remains unpunished) marks “a precedent that demonstrates the existence of transphobia in that space (Reforma 222 ), a space that is almost ten years old… and that it happens again only highlights the lack of historical awareness on the part of that place. Having this precedent allows us to discuss who is dangerous to whom? And there, trans, binary, and non-binary people would have much to say in our testimonies about how we enter a bathroom with fear and how we have to remain silent in the face of the cis-sexist system at all levels: family, school, state, cultural, and social.”

“Being non-binary was a really big act of discrimination”

Drew is a non-binary person. They have long hair and on April 19th were wearing low-rise pants and a top, along with a face mask and glasses. That day, they were asked to leave the restroom at Plaza las Palmas, located in downtown Cancún. 

Drew was accompanied by his mother, who went into the women's restroom. Drew then decided to go into the men's restroom but found it locked. He made that decision "to avoid a conflict because it's happened to me before, but not as badly," he told Presentes .

“Since it was closed and I needed to use the restroom, I went into the women’s restroom. I washed my hands and tried to leave, and at that moment a guy started yelling at me that it wasn’t my restroom. I tried to tell him that the men’s restroom was closed. But this man didn’t stop yelling his transphobia and homophobia. I told him that I’m a non-binary person, I wasn’t doing anything wrong, that I went to use the restroom. I made it clear that I don’t identify as either a man or a woman, and at that moment the man got even angrier and started yelling, ‘People like you shouldn’t exist.’ My mother came out and tried to mediate, like, ‘Move aside, strange man, and let my child through,’ just like that,” Drew told Presentes .

Drew reported what happened and uploaded a video to her Twitter account, but it didn't have the same impact as the reports made by Paulette and Coletti in Mexico City. As she left the plaza, the man yelled at her: "Be careful if you upload it (the video) because I'm coming for you." 

Nationwide, individuals who experience any act of discrimination (committed by private individuals and public officials) can file a complaint with the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (CONAPRED) through various channels, including online complaints ; by phone at 800 543 0033 and (55) 5262 1490; and by email at quejas@conapred.org.mx

“We need public policies of non-discrimination”

Lawyer Jessica Marjane points out that although CONAPRED has specific figures on discrimination related to violent incidents in restrooms, "it reveals a deficiency because, despite the availability of data, no public policy has been developed to reduce discrimination rates in the country. CONAPRED, in this sense, has full authority to create a national policy aimed at preventing discrimination and, above all, eliminating it." 

He adds that “the State also has a responsibility when it fails to guarantee equality and non-discrimination in private spaces; at the same time, commercial establishments must guarantee the right to equality and non-discrimination for all customers. This has not been the case.” 

Even when it comes to conflict resolution, she says there shouldn't be any omissions. “When our colleagues (Paulette and Coletti) were asked to leave, they weren't given any concrete answer as to what the supposed regulation was that prevented them from using the women's restroom. Currently in Mexico, there isn't a regulation that requires you to justify your entry to the restroom by specifying your genitals or based on the perception of others, and that shouldn't be a reason for anyone to question your right to use a restroom,” Marjane concludes.