The danger of being transgender in Latin America in times of quarantine - Open Democracy

The danger of being transgender in Latin America in times of quarantine - Open Democracy
By: Transgender Posted On: April 21, 2020 View: 1041

The danger of being transgender in Latin America in times of quarantine - Open Democracy

The trend started on April 1 in Panama, when President Laurentino Cortizo announced that men and women can only leave their homes on different days in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. Peru followed suit the following day, and Colombia’s capital city, Bogotá, last week.

Almost immediately, the orders proved to endanger the lives of transgender, non-binary, and queer people who present as visibly gender-nonconforming. The same day the order took place in Panama, where women can go out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and men on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, police stopped Bárbara Delgado, a transgender woman, according to Humans Rights Watch. She was detained for three hours and ordered to pay a US$50 fine.

That’s because Delgado’s national ID card has the “male” marker, which was assigned to her at birth. In Panama, people cannot legally change their gender on identification documents unless they undergo sex reassignment surgery. Plus, authorities have the power to request an ID card to confirm gender.

These measures violate trans people’s human rights because Panama fails to recognize self-perceived gender identity, which goes against international human rights agreements and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR). The orders open ample opportunities for confusion when addressing the cases of transgender people whose appearance does not match the gender listed on their ID cards.

Since its implementation, the order has led transgender and other LGBTI people to take to social media to denounce harassment. LGBTI advocacy groups in Panama began circulating a Google Form to allow people to report their cases.

Exceptions in the measures do not prevent harassment

Even in places where authorities cannot confirm people’s gender by checking the ID card, transgender people’s harassment is still happening.

Bogotá’s city government stated that transgender and nonbinary people can go out on days assigned to the gender with which they identify. The office emphasized that police cannot ask to check their ID to check for gender.

But the gender-friendly measures are doing little to prevent harassment. A transgender man in Bogotá reported being thrown out of a grocery store on Wednesday, a men-only day, three days after the order was implemented. The man, who is identified in the news and social media only as Joseph, recorded a video in which he described being approached by an establishment’s employee who continuously addressed him using female pronouns.

The employee asked Joseph to present a permit to show he was allowed to be out, even though the government measures require no such thing. The employee called the store manager, which attracted the attention of other male customers who began to direct insults at him. The manager eventually threw Joseph out of the establishment, according to Joseph.

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