Transgender people march in Mexico to denounce transphobic violence
Mexico City, Nov 20 (EFE).- The Mexican trans community observed the Transgender Day of Remembrance Saturday with demonstrations to denounce transphobic violence in a country with the second-highest index of hate crimes motivated by transphobia in Latin America.
LGBT groups organized demonstrations in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Puebla to protest discrimination and hate crime attacks.
“We exist because we resist,” shouted the protesters in Mexico City during a march from the Revolution subway to the Glorieta de Los Insurgentes in the center of the capital.
Although the march in Mexico City went on peacefully, the participants alleged police assaults near Avenida de Los Insurgentes, one of the main roads in the capital, as cops stopped them from demonstrating.
They accused officers of yelling at them and “kicking to provoke violence.”
“We already know that the police are never there to take care, but today it is a sign that they are only to create violence,” Hola, Amigue, a group of trans and non-binary people, tweeted.
The group posted images on social networks, showing cops in riot gears stopping the marchers.
Mexico has registered the second-highest number of hate attacks in Latin America due to homophobia and transphobia, after Brazil, the National Observatory on LGBT Hate Crimes data has found.
At least 79 hate murders of LGBT people were committed in 2020, of which more than half were trans women.
The LGBT community denounced the spike in violence and discrimination even as almost half of the 32 states have legally recognized the right to gender identity.
In Guadalajara, in western Mexico, the LGBT groups protested Saturday in the Red Park against recent acts of transphobia, including an incident in which people prevented a trans woman from entering a public market.
They also recalled the case of Zoé, a young trans woman attacked with acid in the center of Guadalajara.
“Transphobia is ignorance and hatred,” “Transphobia is patriarchy” and “We are the trans resistance” were some of the slogans of the demonstration.
Mexico has made progress in the legal recognition of trans people. Three states Mexico City, Jalisco, and Oaxaca allow minors to rectify their gender in official documents:
In addition, the Supreme Court recognized in 2018 the right of transgender people to gender identity. EFE
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