Subject: Argentina: Transvestites sue Buenos Aires police force From: ales@wamani.apc.org (Alejandra Sarda) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 96 22:05:11 ARG TRANSVESTITES SUE THE ARGENTINEAN POLICE FORCE On Thursday, February 8, A.T.A. (Argentinean Association of Transvestites) sued the Buenos Aires police force under discrimination, persecution and illegal incarceration charges. It was announced at a press conference -covered by the country's most relevant media- where Maria Belen Correa and Loana Berkins (A.T.A.) together with their lawyer Angela Vanni, denounced the many hardships endured by transvestites in Argentina. * Every night, around 100 transvestites are arrested in Buenos Aires only. It can happen anywhere - at a bar, in a shop or taxi- and it is not necessarily related to prostitution. Transvestites are arrested under police edicts (unconstitutional in character, as it's the very police that promulgates them) penalizing the act of "wearing clothes that belong to the opposite sex". * Transvestites are verbal and physically abused by the police, and they have even been threatened with death in case they reveal those abuses. * Police is not allowed to keep anyone arrested for more than 10 hours in Argentina; usually, transvestites remain 24 hours in jail. * Many transvestites are arrested when they go to the police station to bring food or clothes for a previously arrested friend. * Whenever transvestites try to appeal their arbitrary detention, the appeal is usually destroyed by the police and it never gets to Court. With this action, A.T.A.'s transvestites place themselves before society as individuals having rights of their own, in still another of their brave and dignified acts. The group has been operating for about two years. Its main activity is to fight against police brutality, but they also work intensely to raise their peers' self-esteem through consciousness and support groups and their daily presence whenever a transvestite is arrested, sick, or has been abused by her family. Far from the stereotype -wearing simple, comfortable clothes and almost no make up-, remarkably bright, Loana Berkins is one of the group spokepersons. She is 33, partly Native American and was born in Salta - one of the most conservative Argentinean provinces. She knew from the very begining that she was, in her own words "not a man, neither a woman ... I'd say, a different kind of woman". Her childhood bore the mark of severe physical and emotional abuse; her father used to introduce the family to strangers by saying: "my daughter, my son and ...that". At 13, Loana fled from her province straight to an old house inhabited by transvestites of all ages and shapes. Since then, she is a sexual worker. But last year she decided to quit "the streets" and studied clothes design at a public school. Many times she went directly from the police station to class, but she never stopped going. Loana graduated few months ago and know is starting to develop her own sewing/design business. She estimates to spend an average of 4 nights "in" (arrested) and 3 "out" every week. Many times doctors refused to assist her at a public hospital because her appearance did not relate to the male name in her papers. All those horrors she tells in a quiet manner, almost with pride: she thinks they show patriarchy's esential weakness, as it can only maintain itself through violence. But what does not forget is the pain she felt when A.T.A. was refused entrance to a feminist conference organized by ATEM (a feminist group in Buenos Aires): "We weren't going to talk. We just wanted to listen, to learn", Loana justifies herself, as if it were needed. She and her peers study and discuss with two female anthropologists the slippery question of genders. They visit the most sordid hotels and shanty towns to bring medicines for AIDS stricken transvestites, to chat with the old ones and to teach the young that it is better to shout in a demonstration than to cut your wrists to stop being abused. Every night policemen do not have it easy: organized transvestites are always there, ready to fight every arrest as if it were their own. And as soon as they are "out", they ran to their lawyers' office to keep up the fight. As Loana and her group actively joined the Lesbian and Gay Movement, many of us have learnt a lot about dignity, courage and humanity. We have the joy and the privilege to walk with them in their struggle. Because today they stand up as protagonists in the face of corrupt and yes, fragile, powers that beat and kill, lacking the courage to face the fact that there are many wonderful ways to be human. Alejandra Sarda Escrita en el cuerpo - Archivo y Biblioteca Lesbica (Written on the body - Lesbian Archives and Library) Piedras 1170 1ero. B (1070) Buenos Aires, Argentina Phone: (54-1) 931 96 48 Fax: (54-1) 956 24 38 E.mail: ales@wamani.apc.org -- ales@wamani.apc.org < Fin - End >