Being a Transgender Woman in South America?

Leona Freitas is the typical woman of a Brazilian inner city. She rarely ventured out Congonhas, where she was born and works, and has never visited the big city. São Paulo is a distant dream for her. Belo Horizonte, capital of the state in which she lives, distant only 80 km from her hometown, is only a wish. “Whenever I go,” she says.

The tiny historic town is known for its religious festivals, which attract thousands of Catholic faithful from all over the country. With its countless churches and Christian schools, Congonhas is the portrait of South America: religious and conservative.

Although the subcontinent remains essentially Catholic, the Roman Church has seen its hegemony in the region reduced in recent decades by the rapid growth of Pentecostal churches. The evangelical world is very heterogeneous with regard to political positions and forms of belief, but it is essentially conservative. Homosexuality, transsexuality, prostitution, and abortion are still taboo for most of these religions, when not openly condemned, as well as for the Catholic Church.

In addition to religiosity, a decisive factor for the stigma associated with any sexual behavior or gender identity divergent from the “man-woman” binomial is the patriarchal system in force in the region. Machismo, a concept that dictates many aspects of South American man’s behavior, still is strongly present in most countries in the area. The 2017 Gallup’s World Poll reports that less than one in four women in Latin America overall say women in their countries are treated with respect and dignity. In Colombia, this percentage was the lowest: 15%.

“These unequal systems of gender, of disparate power relations between men and women, articulate with a religious notion that family is dissolving or make use of religion as an excuse to simply maintain these unbalanced relations of power,” says Gustavo Pérez Rodrigues of Colombia Diversa, a NGO working on the rights of trans people.

Ana Paula Braga Luz, a trans history student at the State University of Ceará (Brazil) and a volunteer teacher in a transgender project, says that 95% of the crimes committed against the LGBTQ population in the region are directed at transgender women. “Precisely because we identify with the roles assigned to a being who is discriminated against, who is disrespected.”

The transgender person, says Carolina Cáceres, a social worker working with LGBTQ organizations in Bogotá, Colombia, subverts the current discourse at both the political and religious levels. “In Colombia, trans people do not exist simply because they are not named.”

Recently, a new wave has given fresh energy to traditionalist and patriarchal ecclesiastical circles. “It is headed by anti-human rights movements of fundamentalist character, who use notions from religion to preach their ideas,” says Gustavo Pérez.

Numerous groups have been advocating the so-called gender ideology. The term gains its own contours in each country in which it emerges.

In South America, it has been applied mainly to issues related to the rights of women and LGBT people and to education. “Proponents of gender ideology stand against any measure that seeks to promote non-discrimination and inclusion in education, especially of trans people,” says Gustavo Pérez.

The narrative is more or less the same: the discomfort of being in a body that you do not identify with, the first attempts to express your true identity as a child or teenager, your family’s denial at first, then a lack of family support when not domestic violence or rejection.

A study published in 2017 by Transgender Europe reports that between 44% and 70% of Latin American trans women and children have left their homes because of high levels of abuse or have been expelled by their parents because of their identity or gender expression. Alanis Bello, a trans teacher at the National Pedagogical University in Bogotá, has painful memories about her family. She remembers spending her childhood with a monster: her father.

How many trans people have you seen working at the supermarket cashier where you do your weekly shopping? Driving an Uber? Taking care of a patient in the hospital? Commanding restaurant kitchens?

Ana Paula Braga Luz is trained in gastronomy. Unemployed since August she always has an up-to-date resume on hand and a pair of good clothes in the closet, just in case, for the day she is called for an interview. A student of the history course at the State University of Ceará, northern region of Brazil, and a volunteer teacher in the TransPassando project, she says she is open to working practically with anything.

Ana Paula says that it is common to hear from prospective employers that her résume is good but that she does not fit the job. In almost every interview she does, she receives the same response: “We are looking for a person who is well defined. Sorry and good luck.”

In Latin America, as elsewhere in the world, transgender people and the various issues that they face are under-researched because demographic research does not yet include gender identity.

The initiatives that target the inclusion of trans people in the job market are still timid in Latin America. However, some of them show that it is possible to change realities with creativity and few resources.

The first canteen managed by trans people in a student space has been running since April in the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities of the National University of Cordoba, in Argentina. Among attendants and suppliers, the snack bar employs 12 trans people.

The experience conceived by the LGBT NGO Devenir Diverse and by the student center Estudiantes Al Frente guarantees the trans students an income, enabling them to have the conditions necessary to finish their studies. “The beautiful thing about this action was to offer work opportunities for many who had never been able to have it,” says Ivanna Aguillera, president of the NGO and vice president of the Federal Trans and Transvestite Convocation of Argentina.