FactualWith 175 homicides, 2020 has been a very deadly year for transsexuals. A violence facilitated by the positions of President Bolsonaro but which does not prevent certain advances in the political field.
In Brazil, not a week goes by without the story of one of these horrendous nauseating crimes appearing in the press. There was Chiara, a 27-year-old makeup artist who was stabbed to death. Samylla, shot dead on the edge of a beach in Fortaleza, in the Nordeste. Marcia, beaten up and abandoned in a vacant lot in the suburbs of Rio. Or Vicky, strangled by her assassins, who then threw her body in the middle of a field near São Paulo before setting it on fire.
These victims, who died in 2020, have one thing in common: all are transgender women.
On January 29, on the occasion of Trans Visibility Day in Brazil, the NGO Antra, which fights for the rights of sexual minorities, published its annual report. Overwhelming, as always. With 175 assassinations recorded in 2020, Brazil remains the first country in the world for murders of trans, far ahead of Mexico or the United States.
A homicide every three days
The toll is heavy and, despite the crisis due to Covid-19, the figures have exploded: + 41% compared to 2019. According to Antra, nearly 1,500 trans people have been murdered in Brazil in a decade, or one homicide every three days, the vast majority of young women aged 15 to 29, black or mixed race. Behind the figures, the crimes often reveal the hatred to which this community in Brazil is subjected. Murder by gunshot or stab is often preceded by acts of torture: stoning, setting fire, cut penis …
“It’s very hard to be trans in Brazil …”, Alicia recognizes. At 42, this native of the State of Bahia now lives at Casa Nem, in Rio. The place, founded by transgender activist Indianara (to which Aude Chevalier-Beaumel and Marcelo Barbosa devoted a beautiful documentary in 2019), serves as a refuge for transgender and transvestite people in the city. In a small and precarious yellow house in the Flamengo district, about fifteen occupants find shelter and a little affection. “Here, we feel respected. We are treated like human beings ”, explains Alicia.
Black skin, hair cut short and dyed blonde, Alicia can no longer count the insults and discrimination she suffered. “There are immediate refusals during job interviews, insults like ‘queer’ or ‘dirty sow’, or harassment in transport …”, she lists. Driven from their families, trans people are refused employment, education, health care … Many fall into prostitution. The life expectancy of a Brazilian trans would not exceed 35 years.
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