A transgender woman murdered in Turkey

This is just a copy/paste of a news I just received through Lambdaistanbul (see here for the english version of their website), association. a turkish LGBTT association

Another transgender friend was murdered!

Press Release by KAOS GL – 11/11/2008

Baris Sulu – Ankara

Translated into English by Sedef Cakmak

Edited in English by Oner Ceylan

As we were getting ready for the “November 20th, Remembrance Day for Transgender victims of hate murders” we were devastated by a news we received. On November 10, 2008, around 9 pm in Etlik, a district of Ankara, our friend Dilek was attacked with a pump action shotgun, and passed away at the Ankara Diskapi Education and Research Hospital at around 0:30 am on November 11, 2008.

According to an eye-witness; while they were in the car with Dilek in the Etlik-Iskitler district, they were startled by a shot and the sound of a shattered window coming from the back of the car. A few minutes later, another fire was opened from the side of the car aiming Dilek’s head, who was sitting in the driver’s seat. When she was taken to a hospital where she was taken into intensive care. Eight shots were found in her head. This verifies that the assault might have been done with a shotgun. It was told that the assaulters ran away with a dark colored car and they were more than 2 people.

Dilek was one of the transsexuals who had filed complaints against the attackers in the Eryaman incidents. During the trial, she had also sat at the witness chair and testified against the assaulters. The suspects of the Eryaman incidents were released during the hearing on October 17, 2008.

Condolences to all of us…

And another press release, from LGBT Rights Platform, which was delivered during a protest, on the 12th of November :

Gay and transsexual murders are political – We now the killers!

LGBT Rights Platform
15/11/2008
26 kere okundu

On November 12, 2008, after the funeral service of Dilek, LGBT Rights Platform has delivered a press release followed by a protest march in Ankara. You may find the press release below.

LGBT Rights Platform – Press Release

12 November 2008, Ankara

We are in sorrow and anger.

We are in deep sadness, because one of our friends has been a victim of the heterosexist hate and murdered once again.

Transsexual Dilek İnce, who has been attacked with a shotgun on 10 November 2008, died on 11 November 2008.

We are in anger, because we came here from a cemetery. We are in great anger because we cannot know which gay or transsexual friend of ours is the next.

Who killed transsexual Dilek İnce in a shotgun attack? And will the murderers be found?

Who killed gay individual Ahmet Yıldız with a machine gun? And why could İstanbul Police Department not find the attackers?

Who forced Ege Tanyürek, a young gay person, to commit suicide in Adıyaman?

We are in fear and fright!

We would like to know if gay and transsexuals are not citizens according to Mr. Prime Minister?

Isn’t it a crime to discriminate citizens?

We want to know

If the police will find the murderers?

If prosecutors and judges will give up freeing the killers under grievous provocation.

We are in fear and freight because we do not know how many other gays and transsexuals will be killed by the Prime Minister’s citizens who “got out of patience.”

We want to know if Mr. Prime Minister will create a just and peaceful society by consternating and disquieting.

We will not change, you will get used to it!

We knocked your doors, we screamed, we wore shrouds, do you think we are playing a game?

We are being killed just because we are gay or transsexual. We are looking for justice and we cannot find it.

What we want is not too much; it is only not to be killed because of our sexual orientation and gender identities.

How long will you watch us being killed by empowering homophobic and transphobic hate?

Hitler sealed us with pink triangles and killed us in holocaust, but could not destroy us. You, the watchers! Do you think that you will be able to destroy gays and transsexuals through hunting one by one?

We announce it!

Gay and transsexual murders are political – We now the killers!

We will not let it go!

Shame on your morality soiled with gay and transsexual blood!

I see no comment to add to this sad news, but even if it isn’t directly linked, I think it is important to remind that the association Lambdaistanbul is facing dissolution and that the final appeal of the case will be held in Turkish supreme court on november 25th. A petition to protest the dissolution decision can be signed here. I don’t know much of the turkish situation but I think it is currently difficult for LGBT people and there was much violence directed to trans peole, so it would be really dramatical if the sentence was to be confirmed, shutting down an association defending LGBT people.

Some thoughts on language and (trans)gender

In this post, I’d like to share some thoughts on language and gender, and what role I think language played in my own gender construction.

But before, let me introduce myself a bit. I am (legally) french, even if I might have some, well, let’s call it language dysphoria. I mean, I speak french nearly all the time in real life, with my friends, family, and so on; but on the other hand, most culture, or at least entertainment I got, came from english-speaking countries, most of it being USA. Most of the movies I watch are american movies – I find that french movies suck. Same things for TV series, except french ones suck even more. Novels I read? Mostly from UK and USA. At least for movies (for books it’s more difficult), I prefer to see them in english version. I’ve been using computers and video games since I was 4, at a time where there wasn’t much internalisation, so I used english too. And I am a PhD student, in a field where all my communications must be in english.

Of course, I am not the only one in this case. Many middle-class people of my age probably share the same influences and relation to english, but there are some mechanisms I find quite interesting to compare with being transgender; and in particular, one which is important for me, the “language switch”. I don’t know if there is a proper term to designate this, but for me it is the fact that I am in some mental “state” to speak and think in english, and in some other to speak and think in french. I need some adaptation to switch between the two: I need more effort to get myself to think in english, since it is not my native tongue, but when I have been speaking english for a while, I need some seconds to go back to french.

I feel the same way going from masculine to feminine in french (of course it would also work for any other heavily gendered tongue, french is just my personal example).

In french, you use variations of the same words when it is masculine or feminine: for example, to say “I am happy”, a man will say “Je suis joyeux” and a woman “Je suis joyeuse”.

This isn’t very complicated: female form just usually takes an additional “e”. There are more tricky things, because french is quite a complicated language, but that’s basically it.

The thing is, when you are in an everyday conversation, and you don’t think a lot about what you are talking about, what you say comes very spontaneously, and it is difficult to go from using a female form to speak (or, worse, think) about yourself to a male form, or the opposite.

I remember when I transitioned, the first step of it wasn’t my clothes, it wasn’t facial hair epilation or hormonotherapy, it was… well, “gender switch”. Speaking and thinking about myself in the female form, whereas I had been taught to use the male one since birth.

Adding a “e” to some of the words you say doesn’t seem that difficult, but let me tell you english-speaking trans people that you have it easy not having to go through this :p

The thing that I found really frustrating is that I felt like I was deluding myself: if I had been a true trans, I thought, I should have been thinking of myself in the female form spontaneously. I shouldn’t have to make an effort about this. And I am not the only one to think that: once or twice, I saw trans people wondering if they were truly trans because they were still sometimes thinking of themselves in the wrong grammatical gender.

Of course, the facts is it’s perfectly normal to need some kind of adaptation. I usually think and speak of myself in the female grammatical gender when I am with friends, but I have more trouble after a week with my family who still call me “he” and by my birth name. That doesn’t make me less a woman, in the same way that, after a week in UK, the fact that some words came more easily in english doesn’t make me less french.

(On the other hand, the fact that I am both lesbian and quite fond of Monique “Lesbians are not women” Wittig does make me less of a woman, and the fact that I reject my nationality does make me less french. But it’s another matter.)

I think the fact that my native tongue is quite heavily gendered affected how I defined myself: I tend to define as “female gender” because… I use female (grammatical) gender to speak. But maybe if I was speaking in a less gendered language in everyday life, I could use “ze” or even don’t care much if I was called “he”.

On the other hand, I’m happy sometimes to use female grammatical gender to spaek about me in order to subtly tell that I am not a man, without having to directly correct someone. And when I am with someone whose I don’t know the preferred gender, it helps me if that person use the masculine or feminine form to speak about him/herself.

I think language, which is linked to culture, have an influence in the way we think about ourselves, because we need this language to think, which is why feminists try to change the language: e.g., inventing new neutral pronouns instead of using the masculine one as neutral.

Which also means that differences in language can cause differences in the way we act and construct ourselves, both individually and collectively. Of course, I don’t think that e.g. trans people who speak french are very different from trans people who speak english or spanish or deutch or whatever (at least I can speak for western tongues and cultures that I vaguely know); but I think it can be interesting to see how the strategies we use to resist the forced genderisation that comes from language can slightly differ.

Trans & Intersex marches

Saturday, 11th of october (that is, this saturday), a number of trans&intersex demonstrations and gatherings will take place in various cities of Europe: Paris, Madrid, Bruselles, Barcelona, Lisbon, Zaragoza, Bilba, Vitoria-Gasteiz,…

The global punchline is “Neither men, nor women, binarism make us ill”, but there are variations according to cities (e.g. Paris is centered on the question of “rights”). While I personally quite like the radical tone, I am, with the reflection, afraid it could be wrongly interpreted and not the easiest way to gather all trans’ people (it’s like “lesbians are not women”, I like the sentence but I wouldn’t necessarily put in the head of a lesbian demonstration), but well, we’ll see.

The common revendications (there are, again, variations between cities and countries, as they have different situations) are the following:

• Removal of transsexuality from lists of mental illnesses
• Access to hormons and surgery without requirement of psychotherapy
• Removal from the mention of “sex” (or “gender”) from official documentations
• Suppression of the reassignations at birth of intersex people

Here are some visuals for Barcelona, Paris, Bruselles and Vitoria-Gasteiz:

For some history, Existrans – a demonstration for the rights of trans people – has taken place in Paris since 1997, and it is the 12th time this year.

Last year, there were also demonstrations in Madrid and Barcelona, and this year it has spread to more cities.

I hope there will be many people present in those demonstrations this year, and that they continue spreading in other cities and countries for the following ones :)

Trans, gender, and me

Let’s start when I was a kid or a teen. Thing is, I was feeling bad with my gender identity, but not that bad, if you see what I mean? I wasn’t very good with being a boy or, even worse, a man, and I didn’t like my body. But I never felt like “a woman” or something like that.

I have always been very shy, and never have socialized much (as a boy or a girl) and I think it did play an important role in my relation with male privilege. Many typical things constitutive of “boyish” identity were quite out of reach for me.

Now I am reluctant to say that I was shy because I was trans’ (I certainly didn’t feel like that at the time) because I feel like it’s reinterpreting the past a posteriori. It might also be the contrary: being trans because I am shy, since I don’t think I would have transitioned If I had be able to fully socialize as boy/man. Or maybe it’s just quite independent, though linked.

This being said, I think I had some male privilege. Maybe even the fact that I didn’t socialize as a boy, because I escaped  “reality” through books, tv and videogames, has something to do with male privilege. On the other hand, I don’t think I internalised it much. There again, I am reluctant to say that I had a complicated relation to male privilege because I was going to define as trans 10 years later. On the other hand, there again, maybe it is the other way around: I ended up being trans because I wasn’t able to identify with male and internalize male privilege.

But I don’t think transitioning was the only possible outcome of my life. True, as child/teen, I don’t think I was ever integrated to “boys” club, even if there are periods where I did make some efforts ; b ut I could deal with that. As a young adult (18-2x), I did it by being a complete geek with a very neglected look. There were times when I was a bit less neglected and tried to be more “masculine”, e.g., having beard or sideburns (I was quite fond of that) and actually chosen clothes. (Strangely, I was the more masculine just before I decided to transition. And I realized that my supposedly masculine boots took a new dimension when associated with a skirt, but that’s another story.)

I think that, in the absolute, I could have lived like this. I didn’t see transition as a matter of life or death (I have been quite depressive at a time, but that was after I decided to transition, seeing all obstacles rising in front of me).

What started to make me change was when I started activism (which was in 2003, because of the war in Irak and also, in France, a reform of the age of retirement). I soon became involved in a tiny trotskyst group which quicly entered the LCR, Revolutionnary Communist League, which you may or may not know because of his popular spokeperson, Olivier Besancenot. Activism forced me to meet people in real life and not “escape” through fiction, and of course it also made me think about lots of stuff.

Particularly, I was very interested by the feminist and LGBTI issues.  I remember a feminist formation about how the differences between men and women were socially constructed and not innate. I don’t know how to put it, but it felt like it was very important to me. And transgender was presented like an example of that, that you were not a man or a woman according to the form of your genitals.

(A parenthesis about feminism and transgender. In the groups where I went, which were not women-only, and were constituted of young people (I think it is of importance), transgender was always seen as a very positive, subversive thing. I have observed in english blogosphere many radical feminists think the contrary, and it is also probably true in France (though I never actually saw it theorised here, at least not in the same way), but I only encountered anti-trans feminism long after, so at this time I really felt included in feminism.)

I think my encounter with feminism was very important for my decision to become trans. And by “feminism” I also include LGBTI issues, and particularly lesbian and trans ones. In particular, the affirmation of some lesbians to be lesbians because of political decision, by “choice”, was important for me.

I know for some people it is everything but a choice, but when I became trans’, that’s how I perceived it. As a way  to say that I rejected patriarchy and didn’t want to be a man anymore (if I was one either). Now I don’t want to say it was a “pure” choice, a “pure” political decision: but there was a time where I thought there was two possible ways: continuing being seen as a man, albeit in an “alternative way” (it was clear for me that I could never be a mainstream heterosexual man), like being a punk, a fag or something like that. Or try… being “trans”, that is, not really identifying as a woman but more or less seen as one.

Now, I don’t mean that I became trans only by “feminism” ; but I think that without feminism, the obstacles to transition (losing social status, the fear, but also the internalised transphobia) would have led me to “stay being a guy” (even if, maybe, ten or twenty years later I would have realised I couldn’t cope with it anymore and would have transitioned, but it’s hard to say).

I don’t regret my choice, because I feel quite happier now, even if I went through faaaaaar more shit during the two years since my decision than during the rest of my life. And I identify as “trans”, and “transgender” (though I am questioning myself about the “modifying my body” part).

But sometimes, I feel like I am not completely legitimate because, though I certainly didn’t fit completely in male gender role, I don’t think I ever had the level of “dysphoria” other trans people had. So when I try to speak as a trans person, which I think is important for visibility and fighting cissexism, I speak with my voice, but I wonder if people won’t see it as representing all trans people, which of course I can’t pretend to be. And it’s not always obvious to understand the intensity of what other went through since I didn’t experience it, even if I make efforts.

This is why I am sometimes a bit confused on where I stand in the cis/trans definition. Because, well, yes, I can understand a cis person who doesn’t fit well in gender and actually I feel closer to this kind of “some trouble but not complete ‘dysphoria’” than most experiences described by trans people. And I can understand also that they don’t like the term (even if it is ‘cissexual’ and not ‘cisgender’).

(The fact that I don’t think there is a clearly determined line doesn’t mean that I am against using the terms, but I feel more at ease using it for a population (like “cis people don’t have to worry about XXX”) than at an individual level.)

Now, I was asking myself some questions, like “am I really ‘trans’ ?”, “were my reasons for transitionning wrong?” and such, but the truth is, I don’t think that’s very important, actually. I know some transsexual people would say that I am not a “real trans”, but I don’t care much. My reasons may have been wrong, but even that isn’t important. The thing is, I think I am quite happier this way, and I don’t think I could “detransition” at this time. I couldn’t be a cis man. Maybe I could be a cis woman, but… well, technically this might prove difficult.

So, well, I don’t say this is gonna be for life, and maybe in some years I’ll “de-transition”, but for now, I guess I’m going to keep being (more or less) trans for some more time.

(Thinking about it, when I was at the beginning of puberty, there was a time where I sort of saw my body as “girly”. But it was completely frightening me, and I was afraid that e.g. would grow breasts and be “gay” (yes, I know, the stoopid confusion). Similarly, when we were playing “let’s pretend to be cowboys/cops/bandits/…” I often wanted to be a girl. But I interpreted this more as fetishism or perversion. In my blurred memory, it doesn’t look very much as a desire to be a woman at that time, but well, maybe I’m wrong and it shows I am actually a “real” trans, after all)

(Updated the 2008/10/02 in order to add more information about childhood)

Effects of transition on salary

I found what looks like an interesting article about the effects of transition on salary in the workplace. But I could only get the abstract.

Before and After: Gender Transitions, Human Capital, and Workplace Experience

Abstract

We use the workplace experiences of transgender people – individuals who change their gender typically with hormone therapy and surgery – to provide new insights into the long-standing question of what role gender plays in shaping workplace outcomes. Using an original survey of male-to-female and female-to-male transgender people, we document the earnings and employment experiences of transgender people before and after their gender transitions. We find that while transgender people have the same human capital after their transitions, their workplace experiences often change radically. We estimate that average earnings for female-to-male transgender workers increase slightly following their gender transitions, while average earnings for male-to-female transgender workers fall by nearly 1/3. This finding is consistent with qualitative evidence that for many male-to-female workers, becoming a woman often brings a loss of authority, harassment, and termination, but that for many female-to-male workers, becoming a man often brings an increase in respect and authority. These findings challenge the omitted variables explanations for the gender pay gap and illustrate the often hidden and subtle processes that produce gender inequality in workplace outcomes.

Submitted: August 8, 2007 · Accepted: July 29, 2008 · Published: September 11, 2008

There is also a NYT article that talks about it.

Via Feminist Law Professors.

Edit: I found a PDF version of the article freely downloadable.

Because, yeah, trans people reinforce gender binary…

Trans demonstration in Barcelona

Neither men, nor women, the binary makes us ill

Demonstration of Transgender, Transsexual and Intersex struggle

11 of octobre in Barcelona

They have a more extended leaflet available on their website in castellano (spanish) and catalan.

I quite like the headline even if I understand it could be wrongly interpreted (saying trans men and women are not real men/women).

And I don’t know what the specific headline each city will take (in Paris it will be “right, laws, that respect our choices”), but there will be demonstrations for trans’ rights on the 11th of october in :

• A corunha (Galicia / Spain)
• Barcelona (Catalonia / Spain)
• Bilbao (Basque Country / Spain)
• Bruselles (Belgium)
• Donosti (Basque country / Spain)
• Gasteiz (Basque country / Spain)
• Lisboa (Portugal)
• Madrid (Spain)
• Paris (France)
• Sargoza (Aragon / Spain)

News on Angie Zapata’s murderer’s trial

So, we have what I think is quite a good news: a judge refused to remove the first degree murder accusation.

Charge stands against transgender-murder suspect

By Monte Whaley
The Denver Post

Article Launched: 09/18/2008 10:07:24 AM MDT

GREELEY — A judge today refused to lower a first-degree murder charge against a 31-year-old man accused of beating to death a transgender woman he had oral sex with the night before her death.

Weld District Judge Marcelo Kopcow cited evidence that Allen Andrade hit 18-year-old Angie Zapata several times with a fire extinguisher in her Greeley apartment in July after he confronted her about her sexual orientation.

Kopcow said he also considered several statements Andrade allegedly made while in custody that showed his anger toward Zapata and gays in general. In one conversation, he allegedly told his girlfriend that “all gay things need to die,” said Greeley Police Detective Greg Tharp.

Andrade also allegedly told his girlfriend that he was trying to put the murder behind him and that there was “no use crying over spilled milk.”

Kopcow made his ruling in a preliminary hearing for Andrade, who faces several charges, including first-degree murder and a felony bias-motivated crime.

Andrade’s lawyer, Annette Kundelius, argued that the murder charge should be reduced to second-degree murder because there was no deliberation in Andrade’s acts.

When Andrade confronted Zapata about her sexual leanings, Zapata told him she was “all woman” and smiled at him, Kundelius said. “This was a highly provoking act and would cause someone to have an aggressive action,” Kundelius said. “At best this is a case of passion.”

But Kopcow said Andrade could have left the apartment rather than attacking Zapata. “There was a period of time when reason and humanity could have been heard,” the judge said.

Kopcow also declined to set bail for Zapata, citing the capital nature of the crime. Another hearing in the case is set for November.

But well, on the other hand, the lawyer makes me really want to smash his head against a solid brick (or a solid brick against his head, I don’t care), in a case of passion, of course. Seriously:

When Andrade confronted Zapata about her sexual leanings, Zapata told him she was “all woman” and smiled at him, Kundelius said. “This was a highly provoking act and would cause someone to have an aggressive action,” Kundelius said. “At best this is a case of passion.”

Oh my god, she smiled. How provocative is that? No wonder he had to kill her, then…

Transphobia in Burgos’ jail (Spain)

Here is some information I got by mail and I just translated from spanish to french/english. It comes from an association called ASAPA and is about the situation of a transexual inmate. There again, since it went from spanish to french and from french to english, the translation might not be exactly wonderful.

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PENITENTIARY CENTER OF BURGOS MAINTAINS IN ISOLATIONLE A TRANSSEXUAL PRISONER, WHILE SHE MUST SHOWERS WITH THE REST OF THE INMATES

O.Q.M. is transsexual and is held in the Penitentiary Center of Burgos. Since her arrival there, she is suffering attacks on her personal dignity and of a lack of respect considering her transsexual condition.

Despite the existence of a Circular specifical to the Penitentiary Institutions considering the “penitentiary integration of transsexual people” (Circular DGIP 7/2006) it stays without being applied.

Since her internment in the men jail of Burgos, Kristina (whose official identity is male) asked an uncountable number of times that her shower’s time be changed in order to preserve her privacy and in order to not have to use collective shower with all other inmates, since her appearence if female; but the center did not allow such a change. Paradoxally, she is maintened in isolation during the times of patio and for the rest of activities.

The last 31th of July she was refused the right to get out in the general patio with the rest of the inmates.

From the ASAPA (translator note: Asociación de apoyo a presos y presas de Aragón, Association of support group to the prisoners of Aragon) we want to denounce this situation and remember that being deprived of freedom is enough of a restriction on human dignity, those kind of situations we encounter everyday in jail being completely unacceptable.

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There was also a model of letter from another spanish association, adressed to the director of penitentiary center of Burgos, that I didn’t translate since it is supposed to be sent; but I join it here.

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CENTRO PENITENCIARIO DE BURGOS Carretera de Villalar, s/n 09071-BURGOS Fax 947.461.068

A/A DEL DIRECTOR DEL CENTRO PENITENCIARIO DE BURGOS

Desde la Asociación XXXXXXXX, asociación sin animo de lucro, con domicilio en XXXXXXXX, nos ponemos en contacto con usted ya que tenemos conocimiento de la vulneración de derechos que está sufriendo una persona interna de condición transexual trasladada recientemente al Centro Penitenciario de Burgos.

O.Q.M. (Cristina) es una persona transexual, con identidad oficial masculina aunque identidad sexual aparente femenina. A principio del mes de julio de 2008 fue trasladada de la cárcel de Logroño, donde estaba en un módulo de hombres, pero se le habían aplicado las medidas del la circular 7/2006 “Integración Penitenciaria de Personas Transexuales” en cuya disposición segunda se recoge la forma de actuación de actuación de los Centros penitenciarios relativa a los derechos y deberes de estas personas.

Sin embargo en desde su llegada a Burgos, O.Q.M. ha visto vulnerados sus derechos y deberes; pese a estar clasificada en 2º grado por la DGIIPP con fecha 26 de julio de 2008 se encuentra en la galería III, y no sale al patio con los demás compañeros, lo hace sólo con dos personas que tienen restringidas sus salidas al patio por la Audiencia Nacional . Pese a solicitar en varias ocasiones que se cumpliese su derecho de acceder al patio con el resto de compañeros de la galería, el Centro penitenciario se lo ha denegado.

Por otro lado, la interna ha solicitado al centro que le fuese habilitado un horario para poder ducharse separada de los otros internos como le han concedido en todos los centros penitenciarios que ha estado; sin embargo este derecho también le ha sido negado por parte del Centro penitenciario.

Finalmente, la interna nos hace constar a esta Asociación en sus escritos que desde el Centro Penitenciario de Burgos todavía se siguen dirigiendo a ella en masculino, sin respetar la Circular.

Por todo ello SOLICITAMOS a la DIRECCIÓN DEL CENTRO PENITENCIARIO DE BURGOS que de manera urgente adopte las medidas necesarias para cumplir la circular 7/2006 modificando las condiciones de vida de la persona presa C.Q.M., ponga fin a la vulneración de los derechos fundamentales de esta persona y se deje de causar daños a su integridad.

De Zaragoza, para Burgos a x de agosto de 2008

Fdo. X Presidentx de la Asociación XXX

STONEWALL aragón

crica per as disidenzias secsuals y de chenero colectivo por las disidencias sexuales y de género

Better late than never

This is not a very joyful post, since it is to talk about the brutal murder of two trans women which occured in the last month.

Angie Zapata was murdered the 17th of July in Greeley (USA); you can look at, e.g, the post on Questioning Transphobia for more information. There is also a roundup of posts on Angie Zapata. This a brutal example of transphobic murder, where the murderer dares to call his victim “it” after killing her.

Probably an information which circulated less on english blogs, Rosa Pazos was murdered the 11th of July in Sevilla (Spain). There were gatherings in some spanish cities on the 28th on july. Here is the tract which was signed by multiple organizations.

I read a spanish article on Rosa Pazos, which I found, given the way medias usually treat trans people, quite good, so, despite this is a copyright infringement, I’d like to post a home-made english translation. Since neither spanish nor english are my mother tongues, it is probably not very good, but I hope it is still readable.

The rights Rosa Pazos didn’t enjoy

There are people who without knowing it succeed in changing history. There are times where those people die without having received a minimal acknowledgement. This is the case of Rosa Pazos, the transsexual activist from Sevilla who was found dead in her housing, an event whose causes are under investigation. She was a transsexual woman, anarchist woman, suffering and dreaming, who, without knowing it, would help at the other transsexual people.

“In february of 1997 appeared a transsexual people who was called Rosa and was filing a complaint because the Servicio Andaluz de Salud (Andaluz Service of Health), SAS, was denying her medical assistance for feminization…” This is how starts an informal memo of 19 pages redacted by the attached of the Defensor del Pueblo Andaluz (DPA) [a Defensor del Pueblo is, if I understand well, an official who is in charge to defend citizens against abuses which can be commited by officials from a state], José Chamizo, in 1998, on the case on Rosa, in which was also reflected the reality of transsexuality, at a medical, social and judicial level. As a conclusion, it was recommended that the SAS would take the costs of the transsexualising treatment in charge.

And this was how one year later, the 11 of february of 1999, the Andaluz Parliament approved a decree making come true this dream, unreachable years before when, in an health center, Rosa was treated of “transvestite”. She transformed her rage and outrage into letters and writings to the Defensor. Far from falling into deaf ears, they were a key so that Andalucia became a pioneer in the domain.

But Rosa, who was 46 when she die,  did not only fight for rights affecting her as transsexual. Her comrades from the CNT [Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo - an anarchist trade union] remember that “she was the first to start making banners and to help in everything she could”. Despite her economical problems, since Rosa, as many other transsexual people, was fired after starting her transformation, she always helped the workers’ struggles. Her transsexuality moved her away from her family, according to people of her environment. She was living alone since the death of her mother.

Taunts and agressions

Her physical aspect, with 1.95 meter, red hair and quite marked masculine traits, made her not only the center of all looks, but also the target of taunts and agressions. Blanca, her best friend, explains that in the travel to Malaga so that Rosa submitted to tests in order to have the right to surgery, “two people mocked her and she collapsed”, few hours before some vital tests.

Rosa never obtained reasignement or name change. Her mental problems were an impassable barrier to obtain them. Her psychologist, José Luis Sanchez, was outraged. “Why can’t transsexual people have mental problems ?She always felt as a woman, with or without mental problems”, he said after the death of his patient.

Gatherings in nine cities

In the afternoon of this [28th of July] mondy they were gathering in nine spanish cities in memory of Rosa. In Sevilla the queer collective “Panteras Rosas” organized a gathering of tribute in the place of La Barzola, in Rosa’s neighborhood. The CNT, as other friends and comrades of Rosa, joined this action, which also reclaimed that her murder was clarified.

Previous posts

Since it is quite a pain to import posts from my other blog, I will only link to the already existing english translations of posts:

• The construction of transgender is about my social constructivist vision of transgender. It is also a bit in response to critics on so-called “transgender politics”.
• Essential qualities is actually a fantasy (very) short story inspired by the marriage in France which was cancelled because the bride wasn’t a virgin.
• Transsexual woman found murdered in Portugal : call for action is just a copy/paste of a call from the Portugal’s Panteras rosa about a transphobic murder.
• How I think socialists should perceive transsexuality is an (enhanced) copy/paste of an answer I made on RevLeft board. While this post talks about socialists, I think most of it is also adapted to feminist crtics.
• Why I am transgender gave my personal vision of why I think I became transgender.
• Trans people in video games is about some transgender characters in video games.

That’s it. If you have comment on one of those specific posts, I suggest you make them there, despite the french interface :)