Mexico's transgender community in fear after second murder
Reuters
By Jose Luis Gonzalez
September 6, 2020
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - The gruesome killing on Saturday of a second transgender woman in northern Mexico has unnerved the local transgender community and amplified calls for greater protections in the Latin American nation.
The murder of Leslie Rocha in the border city of Ciudad Juarez came days after a transgender civil society group staged a protest there to demand greater protection.
Those demands were sparked by the murder late of Ciudad Juarez-born transgender activist Mireya Rodriguez Lemus, whose body was found earlier this week in Aquiles Serdan, a town in the northern Chihuahua state.
A transgender woman in Ciudad Juarez, who declined to give her name, said people are “a little scared, a little terrified” to go out on the streets.
“We don’t know what to do anymore because there are so many hate crimes against the trans population.”
That is the difference… a hate crime instills fear in a community. The target of the crime isn’t just the person but the whole community.
Because of discrimination finding work is impossible for many trans people and no work mean no housing and no food.
Haitian center a refuge for transgender people
NBC News
The Associated Press
September 4, 2020
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Prejudice and discrimination against transgender people is common in Haiti, but at least one organization is providing a haven where they can feel welcome.
The Kay Trans Haiti center in the capital, Port-au-Prince, provides lodging and care for up to 10 transgender people. Funded by a Spanish health care company and the United Nations Development Program, Kay Trans Haiti is open to transgender people who have been victims of verbal or physical abuse. It provides services including a psychologist free of charge, and allows residents to stay for up to a year.
But once the year is up they are on their own, however the prejudice and discrimination hasn’t ended for them.
Haiti’s LGBTQ community continues to experience social stigma. Thousands of people in July marched against gay and transgender rights in a rally organized by some churches demanding that President Jovenel Moise rescind a decree that rewrites the 185-year-old penal code recognizing same-sex unions and tacitly allowing homosexuality.
In 2016, an LGBTQ cultural festival in Port-au-Prince was canceled after organizers received threats and a local official, calling it a violation of moral values, sought to ban it.
So even though they get that one year of help the climate there hasn’t changed. They need to bring about a cultural revolution which will be almost impossible in a “macho” community.
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