Share

Share

Share on Facebook Share on Facebook Tweet Share on Twitter Share on WhatsApp Share on WhatsApp

SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER

Liliana, known as "La Chaqueña," was the victim of a hate crime on July 3rd while working on the highway at the Burzaco roundabout on Avenida Monteverde, in the Almirante Brown district. She would have turned 65 on July 9th and worked as a prostitute. Her family is waiting to receive her remains so they can say goodbye and demand justice, urging greater awareness and vigilance in condemning this hate crime.  

A man who fled on a bicycle along the road attacked her with a brick, threw her into a well, and continued to pelt her with stones. “There are images of the moment the attack began, when he threw her into the well, and how he kept throwing stones at her,” Lali, 51, Liliana's niece and also a trans woman, told Presentes. She contacted a woman who filmed the attack and was able to give a statement to the authorities about what happened. La Chaqueña died at the Rafael Calzada Municipal Hospital the following day, early Tuesday morning, the 4th. She had lost a significant amount of brain tissue. Despite repeated calls from neighbors, the ambulance and police took 45 minutes to arrive at the scene. The case is being handled by UFI N°3 in Lomas de Zamora.

Key witness

The witness to the transvesticide is a family friend and told Lali that she used to see her aunt there two or three times a week. They always greeted each other.

“It didn’t take five minutes for her to return last Monday, when she found her lying in a well. About three guys from a mechanic’s shop were watching, and the woman insisted they help pull her out, and they did, until they called the police, saying it was an accident. Then the police told them they had to call the SAME (Emergency Medical Assistance System). They gave them the information, and the ambulance took another 20 minutes to arrive,” Lali recounts. She adds that her aunt was more frail after surgery for a stroke.

Who was Liliana?

Liliana and her siblings lived almost their entire lives in Almirante Brown. Liliana arrived with her sister from the town of Laguna Pato (Chaco) when she was 18 years old. Her niece Lali, who was young and had not yet transitioned, remembers that there was a serious problem when Liliana had to do her mandatory military service, because “her sexuality was discovered.”

After her military service, La Chaqueña had a brief, formal job. At 25, she began hormone therapy and moved out of her older sister's home. "She needed to distance herself a bit from the family to feel free," Lali reflects. "Although her mother never judged or discriminated against her, she always took care of her and supported her in every way," she adds.

At 27, Liliana moved to another neighborhood, Ministro Rivadavia, a block from the sports center. “And 15 years ago, she had a stroke and came back to live with me in San José, Almirante Brown.” A room was built for her on a piece of land that another brother gave her. The house was built through raffles and thanks to contributions from neighbors. It was well-equipped with her bed, her stove, her television, her wardrobe, and her table. She had everything she needed: medication, treatments, doctor's appointments, and care from neighbors. Sometimes the family asked her to take care of herself and stay off the streets. 

Seeking freedom

Liliana loved Moria Casán, imitated her, and even met her. She participated several times in the reality show hosted by the diva: that living room where couples publicly debated their problems.

 “She wanted to continue living her life that way. But not to be killed ,” emphasizes Lali, who started working at the Municipality of Quilmes three years ago through the transvestite trans quota, as a driver in the Children's area.

“She said she was going to die on a street corner, that she didn’t recommend prostitution because it was a very demanding job, but that she was happy working. All she thought about was taking a bath, putting on some clothes, slipping on some shoes, putting on makeup, making herself look pretty and perfumed, and going to stand there at the roundabout at 7 in the morning, or in Lomas until midnight. I was just talking to a friend, and she always said she was going to die a prostitute and an Argentinian, with her lips painted bright red.”

Demanding justice with a gender perspective

Paulo Kyriakos, director of Diversity for the Municipality of Quilmes, organizes the farewell rituals. The community needs to embrace one another. “ How symbolic that this is happening so few days after the march against transphobic murders ,” he emphasizes, reviewing the photos of the sunset in Plaza de Mayo.

“The images are already with the prosecutor’s office,” Kyriakos asserts. He has corroborated all the pieces of the state bureaucracy puzzle in court. He wants the justice system to validate what the community already knows: it was a hate crime against a trans woman.  

In the Lomas de Zamora courthouse, there is a gender unit that was asked to intervene and commit to the proceedings. The gender unit of the Provincial Ministry of Security has already intervened because the complaint was written using masculine pronouns. Daniela Castro, from the Buenos Aires Province Ministry of Gender, is also following the case. “Given the extremely painful experience we had when Diana Sacayán’s case was stripped of the transvesticide classification, we are on high alert and will be watching closely to ensure that the judiciary is less unjust and applies some of the diversity it struggles with,” she says, referring to the legal setback of the Court of Cassation’s refusal to uphold the transvesticide classification that had been handed down in the first instance .

“Our colleague was not only a victim of social violence, but also of abandonment by the health system,” the transvestite and trans organization Históricas Argentinas .

“I learned of this terrible tragedy today. I met Liliana many years ago. She was a wonderful person, full of life and joyful. She once helped me and her ex-partner build a wall at my house. She was a much-loved fighter,” Lorena Caldara, one of the leaders of the Históricas organization, replied via WhatsApp.

Structural violence and the demand for reparation

Trans and gender-diverse people over 40, like "La Chaqueña," are survivors, given that the life expectancy for this community is between 35 and 40 years. For this reason, and because of all the violence they have suffered, a law of historical reparations is demanded for those who have passed this age and have been victims of institutional violence. On May 24th of this year, more than 90 organizations participated in the First Plurinational March for a "Historical Reparations Law Now ," with over two thousand people. It was also a historic march due to the number of trans and gender-diverse people who came from various provinces to participate in the event organized by the organization Travestis-Trans Las Históricas Argentina .