Two years after the brutal murder of Gisberta, a transsexual woman has again been murdered in Portugal. And once again, the media coverage strenghtens transphobia.
The Panteras Rosa launched an international call for action, which I relay hereby.
Portugal, Transphobia kills again: international call for action!
Two years after the brutal murder of Gisberta, in Oporto, another transsexual woman was murdered and her body placed in a rubble dumpster in the Lisbon area last month.
Other crimes followed, shocking the country. However, the surge of violence cannot hide neither the victims nor the nature of these crimes. This is the case of Luna, 42, partially deaf, of Brazilian origin, for many years resident and worker in Portugal, prostitute at Conde de Redondo area (in Lisbon).
Two years after Gisberta, transsexual people are still targets for hatred and violence based on prejudice and ignorance. The crime is under investigation and under justice secret, so we know very few about its circumstances or about its motivation; we hope the investigation undertaken by the Police can provide answers.
Nevertheless, we know that transphobia kills and that trans people are more prone to suffer violence than the majority. We know prostitution is often a job for those who have no other way of earning a living, and that it is hard to have a gender different from the one your body suggests. We know prejudice and discrimination are pervasive, that ignorance feeds hatred and generates violence. We know the State, society, all of us, have responsibilities towards the deadly victims, and mainly towards all those other people in whose life the fight for survival coexists with fear and the risks that cause it.
Luna was born a woman although her body suggested otherwise; her body, masculine, didn't fit her identity. She was being followed at Hospital de Santa Maria by the multidisciplinary team in charge of helping trans people change their bodies; she had projects, wishes and frustrations just like anyone else. She was dear to some people and maybe wished to go back to Brazil, where her family lives. Luna was a woman who fought against many obstacles and, according to newspapers, died victim of great violence, possibly fed by hatred, prejudice and ignorance. Her body was left in a dumpster, hidden by rubble and dust, as if it was garbage, as if her life had not been worth living.
Like all potential victims, trans people need forms of protection that guarantee equality of opportunities and the possibility of a dignified life. They need, like everyone else, of being able to exercise their rights to the development of personality and to self determination – of being able to freely choose their name; they don't need (nobody does!) identification documents that insist on the use of criteria so voided of real content such as "sex" (even if disguised only as "name" and "justify", e.g., placing a trans woman in a detention cell with men. Trans people need being seen as people with rights and duties, no more and no less than all other people. Trans people in Portugal need the pedagogy of visibility, way beyond the prostitution or night shows circles. And Portugal needs to see these people without prejudice and fear.
Gender identity is subject the State should have already legislated about; this delay aggravates many trans people's living (or survival) conditions. When will the legal amendments that allow the actual exercise of civil rights by transsexual and transgendered people come? When will we have legislation that overcomes many politicians’' retrograding and conservatism and stops to impose petty restrictions? When will we have legislation that stops feeding the daily psychological violence against these people? When will we have legislation that clearly considers that transphobia constitutes aggravating grounds for discrimination, harassment and violence? When will we have a serious commitment towards stopping cases like those of Gisberta and Luna, murdered out of transphobic hatred? When will police forces be provided with more human resources and more and better civic and technical training? When will cooperative approaches substitute the aggressive attitudes lingering among members of the various police forces?
Panteras Rosa – Frente de combate à GayLesBiTransfobia (Pink Panthers – Combat front against GayLesBiTransphobia) reaffirm their commitment towards fighting against transphobia in all of its forms and pay tribute to Luna, prostitute in our city, woman just because!
Lisbon, March 13 2008
Proposal for International Action: on the 24th, 25th or 26th March
That vigils are held, with candles, in special memory of Luna and all of the trans people victim of transphobia.
To be developed by numerous small and big groups in the most (small to big) cities possible.
With banners, just in front of Portuguese embassies or consulates in the cities where they may exist or, for other cities, in squares in front of European ministries, in front of psychiatric hospitals or whichever places contribute to transphobia.
We suggest the following phrases:
Luna trans 42 years old Brazilian, prostitute murdered in Lisbon.
Statistically, how many times more is a trans person in risk of being victim of violence compared to you? And murdered?
According to the context of each country we suggest the phrase:
Stop transphobic laws. How much longer for a law against transphobia?
Or for countries that still haven’t turned transphobia into law:
How much longer for a law against transphobia?
This case is not Portugal specific, it is international and the fight efforts should be done together.
(In practical terms, it should be simpler to organize small groups in different places instead of asking people to mobilize to the Portuguese embassies that are concentrated on the capital cities)
We ask you to publicize this action, to participate in big numbers and to forward testimonials, photos, articles, etc. to panteras.lisboa@gmail.com
The media strengthen transphobia
After the recent murder of one more transexual woman, Luna, occurred in the area of Lisbon, the media focus on the physical aspect of the victims in the most sensationalist manner - thus making it more important than the murder itself. A few words about the murder follow, as if this is was a clear and natural explanation of the cause of such murder - lingering in the detaileded description of the unusual physical aspect of the victim. At the hands of the media the most important becomes the victim's unusual body, placing the murder on the background.
Speaking - depending on the attempt (or not) not to seem transphobic - of a transsexual with a man's body (a pruddish way to say "with penis", of a man dressed in women's clothes, or of a transvestite with breasts. Some even speak of homophobia.
The picture emerging of such articles is that the victim is a monstrosity displayed to feed the public curiosity, without any respect neither for her gender nor for the intimacy of her body, and giving the impression that it is almost (or even absolutely) normal that these people be murdered.
The other image conveyed in this way is that being trans is wanting to mislead "the world" by using a disguise particularly well arranged to give a misleading appearance of men and women... And if they deceive the world is of course natural that the deceived people react.
This kind of speech from the media is, unfortunately, far from applying only to murder -- it is used in almost all broadcasts, articles, and interviews on trans subjects.
The Portuguese media, with no exception, satisfy also with the description of the trans person’s precarity situation – wether it is on prostitution, drugs, having HIV, no papers, no house – as if these lives were a choice of the victims, describing them hiding that it is transphobia that generates this precarity, and presenting as scandalous not only the “choice” of being trans, but also the choice of the life style, turning the victims into immoral and chocking persons and continuing in this way to promote transphobia, the precarity of the trans lives, and the fact that they are among the persons most likely to suffer agression. The presence of the trans person in the Mental Diseases List, to frequently legitimates the media, when they concede expression to the trans, to credit or discredit it trough persons of the medical corps, reinforcing the idea that the word of a trans has no value for itself.