"You beat us, raped us, and murdered us. What more do you want?" Patricia Rivas shouts to about a hundred armored police officers behind helmets and shields. 

It's May 24, 2024, the afternoon is freezing, and the Plaza de Mayo, where the Government House is located, is surrounded by uniformed officers to prevent the Second Plurinational March for Trans and Transvestite Reparation from traveling down the street to the National Congress, where a stage awaits. The Ministry of Security of Javier Milei's government published a protocol that only allows demonstrations on the sidewalk , without blocking traffic, in addition to enabling several mechanisms to criminalize protests.

Patricia has flowing platinum blonde hair and walks in silver heels, covered in a black jacket that reveals a plunging neckline. She is 58 years old, tall and robust, and appears strong, but she bears the scars of hatred and violence from the security forces on her body and in her memory. She is part of Históricas Argentinas, an organization of older trans women who recognize themselves as victims of state terrorism and multiple forms of institutional violence in democracy. They are survivors and demand to be heard. 

The older trans people are accompanied by human rights and diversity activists. There are trans children and adolescents, non-binary people, lesbians, queer people, and many other chosen families. Faced with the disproportionate police presence with long guns and roaring motorcycles, the cry was one:  

– We are not afraid!

Institutional violence is a historical wound for transvestite and trans communities. During the last civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983), people of diverse sexuality, and with particular cruelty, transvestites and trans women, were persecuted and imprisoned for their identity. But for them, the jail cells continued well into democracy, due to the criminalization of police edicts in several provinces that authorized the hunting of "transvestites" in the streets. These edicts were in effect until 1998 in the City of Buenos Aires and for a decade later in the Province of Buenos Aires and other provinces. Trans and transvestite people often say that for them, democracy only began in 2012, with the passage of the Gender Identity Law.

A decade ago, activism began for a historic reparation law for trans and transvestite survivors, as well as a call for a gratuity pension.

For this purpose, different groups were formed: In addition to Las Históricas Argentinas, there is the Argentine Trans Memory Archive, an artistic and political project of historical recovery that has traveled the world and has been replicated in several countries.

In addition to historical reparations, these groups demand the fulfillment of the right to comprehensive healthcare for a dignified old age. But the bills remain dormant in Congress as they lose parliamentary status.

Marlene Wayar is an activist, writer, social psychologist, graduate of the University of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and communicator. On a radio program, she explains :

– What we want is for this society to sit down and discuss and recognize that we have an average lifespan of 32 years, while cis people's average lifespan is 76 and counting, and that this constitutes genocide. We can look at the points of the law later, but this is much more complex than a meager retirement. As Wanda says, the State must at some point acknowledge everything it has taken from us—it has taken our lives.

Currently, only the province of Santa Fe in Argentina has a Reparations Law . It's an achievement and a precedent, but current political will doesn't open up new dialogue. On November 1st, organizations such as Futuro Trans and the Archive, along with the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), filed an injunction seeking to have the State recognize their right to social security. "We also seek recognition and reparation for the institutional violence suffered by the transvestite and transgender population since the restoration of democracy to the present," explains Marlene .

The marks of the dictatorship 

“Historic reparations consist of two steps: one is for the government to come out and acknowledge all the mistreatment of trans people, and the second is financial compensation that goes beyond a minimum pension. We have to be compensated for the life they made us go through,” Patricia says one Sunday afternoon, months after the March for Reparations, where police threatened and repressed her. 

We're on her friend Eugenia's terrace, in the San Fernando district of Buenos Aires province, near her home. Her voice is the story that, amid laughter and anguish, reconstructs that historical memory she decided some time ago to recover in order to continue reclaiming it. 

– I once had a partner, I was a hairdresser, and I buried all that past. When I returned to activism, I suffered again from the nightmares of being chased, of running with my friends, escaping the police, and one of them being hit by cars and killed. It's horrible to relive all that. 

Patricia also remembers the noises, the voices, and being detained and blindfolded at the Tigre Police Station in the province of Buenos Aires. "The one that now has a commemorative plaque that says there was a detention center there during the dictatorship," she adds. 

In 1981, when she was 14, she was kidnapped there. 

– It was five days, but for me it felt like an eternity. I was blindfolded, and all I could hear were doors, the sounds of a heavy door opening, and they grabbed me. They'd take me to another place and torture me by putting my head under water. Sometimes they'd point a gun at you. Other times, they'd rape you while asking, 'Do you like being a faggot?' There were always two of them, and when the first one finished raping me, I'd faint on the floor, and then the other one would hit me.

In April 2023, for the first time in history, a trial for crimes against humanity featured a group of trans women victims of the dictatorship as its key voices.

Carla Fabiana Gutiérrez, Paola Leonor Alagastino, Julieta Alejandra González, Analia Velázquez and Marcela recounted what they experienced in the Pozo de Banfield , one of the clandestine detention, torture and extermination centers that operated during state terrorism.

Marcela Viegas testified wearing a thick chain necklace, bracelets, and a beret. In front of her, the table was covered with the flag of the Argentine Transvestite Memory Archive. There, she recounted how, when she was about to turn 15, she was kidnapped in Camino de Cintura, Buenos Aires province, and systematically tortured. 

They put a hood over me. I don't know where I was going. We had a blindfold on, and I could see underneath. They threw me on a bed. They tied me up. And they put 220 volts of electricity on me," he said in his statement. 

And she added: "It's a bitch that they're accusing us of prostitution and vagrancy. I used to work every night because no one was going to give me a job because I was a transvestite."

In March 2024, judges sentenced the repressors to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity in the context of genocide. For the first time in Argentine history, military personnel were convicted of unlawful deprivation of liberty, torture, sexual abuse, and slavery of members of the transvestite trans community.

Not all of the survivors were able to access the documents recording these arrests. Sometimes they weren't even written down, or they were given different names. It was also very difficult for them to go to a police station to ask about a comrade, first because they could be detained, and second, because who were they asking for? Their cross-dressing cunning and humor, the muscle that helps them survive, ensured that they were all in "the zone" with their chosen names, their fantasy ones, and nicknames that were a mix of love and sarcasm. 

But none of that stopped them. If one of them was arrested, the others would find a way to send her "the baggage," as they called the shipment of essential things for the remaining days.

Patricia knew that once she was arrested, she didn't have to sign what they gave her; she had to find ways to negotiate. When it came time to sign, she had to write: "I appeal, Your Honor." "You disgust me, you're wasting my time. I don't want to see you here again, or you'll never see the sun again," the judge told her in those years. 

Trans memory

Four months have passed since the Second March for Reparations, and on Avenida de Mayo, the door of a French-style building leads to the Trans Memory Archive. In this space, in addition to archiving and publishing, there is a screen-printing space, a bookstore with LGBT+ titles, and a lounge where the girls meet, undergo therapy, and now give interviews over pastries, coffee, and mates. Sometimes, here or in other spaces, they invite more adult survivors to share memories, chat, and discuss each other's needs.

At the Archive, some 20 older women search for and collect photos, letters, and newspaper articles that piece together the transvestite memory of a country that wanted and wants to make them invisible. With all this, they create exhibitions, souvenirs, books, and chronicles that they then sell to live and sustain this collective transvestite memory. They ward off condescending glances and bring trans lives to light, with all their nuances, colors, injustices, loves, celebrations, and connections.

Their lives and biographies cover many spaces, recounting what they have experienced. 

At 59, Wanda Sánchez shares the structural violence experienced by many transvestite and trans people of her generation. 

– I saw so many of my classmates die, remembering what a mess we were. I survived them all, everything that happened to us. I had to leave home at 13 to start being myself; I couldn't do it there.

During this wandering, she began to be arrested by the police and went through juvenile courts, institutes, and even a psychiatric clinic. "There, a saintly woman, a doctor, told me that being homosexual wasn't wrong, that the one who needed to change was my mother." There, a bridge was built between her and her mother, although it didn't last long because her mother died months later. 

He turned 18 in the clinic and when he left, democracy was already in place in Argentina, but his ordeal didn't end. 

– They've arrested me for existing. They've come looking for me at my house to arrest me. Sometimes I'd end up at the police station with my grocery bags because I'd just left the store and they'd arrest me.

It is her voice but it is the story of many, of so many. 

On a table, cloth bags and T-shirts with images taken from photographs, phrases that some comrade shouted during a march or a chase and now became a proclamation, coexist with books from friendly publishers and their own productions. The first book published by the Trans Memory Archive is out of print, but others are still available and can be purchased on their website: "Nuestros Códigos ); "Si te viera tu madre" (If Your Mother Saw You), about the life of trans activist and one of the founders of the space, Claudia Pía Baudracco; and the most recent: "Kumas," a word meaning "friends, companions, sisters" from Carrilche , the transvestite language that emerged in the 1940s to allow trans people to communicate with each other and survive the police and attacks.

Mónica, 71, says that having her own home helps her a lot. She built it with the money she earned from prostitution. “I didn't waste anything,” she says. Unlike most, she has a supportive family, but this shared space is what “pulls her out of the hole of depression, allowing her to be with everyone and not think so much.” 

She was also known as "the gringa." Her story in the book "Kumas" is interwoven with tales of family, friendships, and also of detention and torture. But beyond the tales of violence, the nights of glitter and fun survive: the carnivals, the bar shows. 

Getting to know these women allows us to piece together the complete history of Argentina.

Teté is 60 years old and wears the immaculate white apron she wears as an archivist. She has short, gray hair and a firm voice that doesn't hide her sadness. It doesn't break, and she exudes the confidence of knowing who she is and who she was.

– It was an ugly situation, because when I was 13, 14, I liked going out because I was always very independent, and being taken to jail, sitting in a police car, and parading around so the whole town could see you, that you were gay.

She was born in a town in the north of Santa Fe province, and her words blur the lines between dictatorship and democracy. At the time, she hung out with older friends, but they too were being persecuted by the law.

– A judge called that gay guy to court and told him that if he continued to hang out with me, he'd be arrested for corruption of minors. That's how I lost friends.

This whole context of discrimination meant she couldn't finish her studies either: "It was very difficult to finish elementary school. The last year was seventh grade, and it was a matter of survival." 

It wasn't until 2013 that she was able to resume her secondary education, finishing it in 2016. And she continued. She managed to complete two years of a degree in Social Psychology at the School of Social Psychology of the State Workers Association (ATE). "I fought hard to get a job," she explains.

In 2000, she joined the Evita Movement political organization and since 2008 has worked at the Magdalena V. de Martínez Provincial Public Hospital in Pacheco. She began cleaning and now works in the administrative area.

He has been in a relationship since 1992 and has been working at the Archive since 2018. 

– This is my space, it's my place, the one I would always choose. Beyond the fact that I have my family and my partner supporting me, this is something else. Here we are among peers. We can have our differences, we have fun, we have a good time, it lifts our spirits. It fills my soul; honestly, it's a space I would always choose to be in. 

She says it out loud, but she also tells it with every gesture of complicity and every laugh. They are at the table, and they are brought together by recounting anecdotes, joys, carnivals, and an infinite transvestite DNA. A chain of words, tools, references, concepts, and pride that transcend decades and geographies.

---

“I never thought that at my age I would one day be able to tell my story,” says Carola. 

On September 29, Carolina “Carola” Figueredo turned 62, almost twice the average lifespan of a trans person. Now she sits next to her colleague from the Trans Memory Archive, Marcela Navarro, in the library of the Alliance Française in Buenos Aires. The space is immense, filled with books; it's the largest French-language library in Latin America. But what's not there is what they will present at this event: the Archive's books with their stories , told by themselves, with their lives and those of those who are no longer with us.

“All I ever heard was reproaches. Everyone judged us, condemned us, but we were never given the opportunity to express who we really were. We were never understood,” Carola explains, and in her words, the curve turns to pride as she explains how the Archive established itself as a redemption project where they could speak out and gain visibility. 

“This space was a second chance. Here we all met again, but at a different time and in a different situation. Now we were free because, starting in 2012, we obtained the Gender Identity Law. I never thought I would have the freedom to tell my story, to have everyone listen to you, to pay attention to you, and that makes you feel important,” she says, in front of an audience that listens, asks questions, tears, and smiles. Her body seems fragile, at times she seems shy, and at one point, suddenly, her biography unfolds and she begins to weave stories in the air that should be in every national education textbook. Her story is also the story of a collective.

At her side, Marcela radiates the presence of a school principal. Her black hair, held in an upturned ponytail, seems to crown her like a starlet's cap. She will talk about all the processes taking place in the Archive, ask Carola for more testimonies, and treat her in a maternal manner. 

"This one left, this one was killed, this one died" was the title of the Archive's first exhibition, held in 2017 at the Haroldo Conti Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, on the grounds of the former ESMA (National Electoral University). In this former clandestine detention center, they managed to make a manifesto of their memories. This time, they didn't enter forced, but rather, they were the force and the resistance. Her voice is measured and very present, explaining: "I receive the material and I separate it: daily life, sex work, carnivals," and she describes how she weaves the conversations together and reconstructs the stories. In addition to photos, there are letters, documents, cards, flyers, and "many plane tickets and trips," and it's not that they were living the high life; those flights translate into exile, escaping to survive.

“I fill out the forms and write down the year and names of the companions in the photos. If she's deceased, we try to find another one who can help us piece together her story; after that, I take charge of writing her own biography. When the companion is still alive, I try to find her so she can tell us her own story,” Marcela continues. On the other side of the crowd, there's a table with some of the books and objects they produce.

We need work

“We have a life to live, but we need a job. We need something to live on, to be able to continue it,” the members of the Archive explain. Sonia Torrese shares her story and explains that she was “rolling everywhere, wherever I could, like a swallow.” She is also one of those daughters expelled from her family home for being trans. Today, at 64, she returned to that house, but to take care of her parents. “My sister and brother didn't accept me. They were very ashamed of me.”

Sonia's blond curls frame the words that timidly appear to portray her. When she says that she used to be "very closed-minded, very stubborn," her classmates stop her and remind her that she has the best memory. If someone sees a face in a photo and can't remember who it is, Sonia surely has the answer.

As a nurse, she explains that a neighbor asked her to go to the nursing home where her mother was staying to treat her. The first few times there were no problems, but then the nurses told the owner of the place that she was trans: "They automatically closed the doors on me, they kicked me out." This happened about seven years ago, in a country with a Gender Identity Law and no police edicts.

Currently, some receive a pension or retirement, but very few. And since that's not enough, they have other jobs and seek help in whatever spaces are available. Wanda says she has a pension, which she adds to the Archive, and on Saturdays she works at the Claudia Pía Baudracco Library , collecting merchandise wherever they can. Most of them talk about similar situations. At that moment, they all start talking at the same time, but they all say the same thing. They name a colleague and talk about their despair at not having any income.

"Sandra is almost 70 years old and still a prostitute. It's a shame that at her age she has to stand on a street corner," they say about another colleague who also has no state recognition.

According to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INDEC), 80% of transvestites and trans people are involved in prostitution. And only 32% completed secondary school, according to research by the organizations ATTTA and the Huesped Foundation.  

To address this gap, the Transvestite Labor Quota Law This law establishes the hiring of trans people in the national government through a minimum quota of 1%, in addition to affirmative action measures aimed at achieving effective labor inclusion in both the public and private sectors. However, the arrival of the new government halted the progress of this law, even adding trans people to the unemployment figures.

The Transvestite Employment Quota Law is named after the two historic activists who promoted it and is only a first step. It is not currently being implemented, and the law is in danger. 

 "The transgender job quota, unfortunately, isn't for women in their fifties," Teté explains. "At this age, they don't want you at all, especially us," she says, aligning herself with being older and trans. 

Patricia is the star of the Buenos Aires afternoon sky. She sips mate and shares a sponge cake with friends. 

"I have a disability pension, which is currently my only income because I'm having problems with the silicone I had applied years ago. It weakened my bones, my hip, for example. It ate away at the cartilage that connects the femur to the hip socket, and the silicone got into my spine as well. I feel a constant burning pain in my back and around my kidneys," she says.

The application of industrial silicone is a fairly common practice among trans people who cannot afford implants. This isn't a matter of vanity but rather a means of identity construction; it's about becoming more like who they are. But because they are excluded from the workplace and healthcare settings, they end up resorting to these unsafe options with serious long-term consequences.

In Argentina, according to the report "Socio-Sanitary Conditions of Trans People," published in 2019 by the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Nation, 83% of trans women modified their bodies to conform to their self-perceived gender identity. Half of them injected materials into their bodies: 66% with liquid silicone and 17% with airplane oil.

“Just this year, a friend of mine, like Silvina Luna, died because silicone damages your kidneys,” Patricia continues, citing the case of the model and TV host who brought the debate about methacrylate and liquid silicone to the media. The difference is that their transvestite and trans colleagues aren't debated or remembered in this way; they only do so among themselves.

Mothers, Grandmothers and Aunts

At the marches, there's often a sign that reads: "Mothers of the Plaza, the transvestites embrace you." This phrase is also a cry when the Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo march, those women who, even today, in their 80s and even 90s, continue to advocate for human rights, demanding the rights of their disappeared children and grandchildren appropriated by the last military dictatorship. Transvestite and trans people know what it means to march to demand these rights and the right to identity. 

“Memory, truth, and justice” is the phrase that calls for human rights violations during the Argentine dictatorship. Transvestites build memory by meeting, searching for photos and the lives of their comrades, and sharing them. But they also build truth by putting their stories in their own voices. So, what happens to justice? The time that justice, the state, and society take to respond and take action is not enough to care for the older trans people who have survived. They explore radio and television programs, podcasts, books, magazines, and gatherings. They do this to meet, to keep this voice alive, but also to ensure that society as a whole supports their demands.

Michelle came to Buenos Aires from Rosario, Santa Fe province, because she was alone in her home there; here she found a family. “I thought I was going to die at 52,” she says, and everyone asks her why, “because that's when my mother died.” And when she speaks, her long nails seem to direct her words. It's hard to imagine her sad, because now she smiles and is part of this group of fellow transvestites and trans women. 

“In the lottery, 52 is the mother,” says one of the girls, and it all has an air of revelation and coffee-table conversation. The 52-year-old was Michelle's birth mother, because in LGBT+ life, when they say there's a chosen family, the titles won are real. Marcela has a very motherly air about her. “I tell her to come home and bring whatever photos you have. Then she came to the archive, started working, and earned her place,” she explains proudly. They now live together but separately. How is that? And “she lives in a gay friend's house, which is across the street from me, but also in mine,” and the issue of tidiness and making the bed and all those daily tasks that make up family life. 

“Aunts,” as many call them, are very beloved. Whether at an event or a gathering, if one of them starts sharing something, the youth calm down and let themselves be carried away by their voices. “For me, personally, what draws me is the affection and respect they show you. It's something we lacked before. There's respect and love; I'm very sensitive. You show me affection, and I'll give you affection. You show me affection, and that's what I've experienced my whole life,” Carola says, her eyes always filled with emotion and gratitude. But the love that surrounds them must be accompanied by a present State.

Much more than a name

That second march demanding reparations, the one in May, after marching down the entire Avenida de Mayo, ended with a music festival and speeches in front of the National Congress. To her low-cut look with silver heels, ripped by police shoving, Patricia now added swimming goggles in case the repression decided to tear gas. The LGBTQ+ youth present also take away a lesson in struggle and resistance, from what they shout: "Transvestite Fury!" In organizations, archives, chosen families, and other adult spaces, there are always diverse youth working on urgent issues ranging from logistics and registration to accompanying some of the "aunts." Sometimes it's listening to them, other times helping them complete a procedure, but the interweaving of generations creates a loving network that once again defies all terror. Before the march ends, Patricia will leave them with a postcard of struggle: she looks at photographer Valen Iricibar and shows him her tremendous breasts laden with history. He does it with the police cordon behind him. 

A couple of months later, when the interview seems to have ended and on that terrace in San Fernando while everything is being arranged to close the day, Patricia, Pato, Aunt Pato rebukes:

– Aren’t you asking me for my full name?

At that moment, all the ways of calling her give way to what she is today, 12 years after the passage of the Gender Identity Law: "Patricia Alexandra Rivas." Her chest swells with pride, her eyes shine brighter, and the heart pendant around her neck seems to be beating. It's not just a name; it's a fundamental part of the biography of a collective.

For trans people in Latin America, being over 40 is considered a survivor. For decades, older transvestite and trans women in Argentina have organized to demand a historical reparations law that addresses the state violence they have suffered over the years, in addition to creating networks in which they build memory and daily resistance. 

* German Federal Foreign Office

Learn about the project and more stories at https://cambialahistoria.com