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


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ales@wamani.apc.org

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