The Latin@ Trans community, like their African American counterparts, also experienced a year.in which they received increasing attention, faced daunting challenges and expressed optimistic hope for the future
When the inaugural Trans 100 List was released, there were ten Latin@ trans persons, Alexis Martinez, Andre Perez, Bamby Salcedo, Diego Sanchez, Drago Renteria, Harmony Santana, Ignacio Rivera, Monika MHz, Ruby Corado and Yosenio V. Lewis recognized for their contributions to the community at large.
One of those persons emerging as a major community leader this year was Bamby Salcedo, the founding president of the Trans Latin@ Coalition. In addition to leading this growing organization, she helped focus attention on immigration issues and how they affect the Latina immigrant community.
Casa Ruby also received a visit from Cuban trans activist Wendy Iriepa Diaz and her husband Ignacio Estrada Cepero on July 26 during the Washington part of their three month visit to the United States. While in DC the Cuban couple also took a trip to Capitol Hill to visit Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) before flying back to Miami and eventually returning home to Cuba.
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Like Bamby, she was also presenting at major conferences and conventions discussing the immigration issue and other relevant ones to trans Latinas. Arianna just recently became a Managing Director at SunServe overseeing their Transgender Services Department.
Trans Latin@s were making their voices heard in media outlets besides print and television. Consuella Lopez, whose lovely face you see on the Washington DC anti-trans discrimination posters, was part of a team of trans people hosting InsighT, a trans talk radio show. Longtime advocate, musician and actor Mark Angelo Cummings' Transistion Radio show is getting increased attention as well.
El/La Para TransLatinas is San Francisco was the recipient of $200,000 in anti-violence funding to address that issue in the San Francisco Latina community.
That issue of violence directed at Latina trans women is not one limited to the San Francisco area. The crushing unemployment-unemployment and lack of opportunities that plague Latina trans women drives high percentages to resort to survival sex work. Because of the perception or actual belief they are undocumented leads to high levels of abuse at the hands of customers and the police.
Like their African-American sisters, trans Latinas are also suffering from unacceptable levels of anti-trans murders directed at them, with the worst spots for it being in Mexico, Brazil, the US, and various countries across Latin America.
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That was evidenced when Rasheen Everett was convicted and sentenced December 5 to 29 years to life for killing Amanda Gonzalez Andujar back in 2010. That was in spite of his defense attorney John Scarpa despicably arguing that her life wasn't as valuable as others. Fortunately the judge said otherwise.
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A Latin@ Trans Year In Review wouldn't be complete without discussion of the cruel and unjust treatment of Latina trans immigrants in ICE detention centers across the country. They are being held up to 6-9 months on average in solitary confinement, have hormone replacement therapy (HRT) withheld from them and in many cases if they haven't had genital surgery are being confined with cisgender men.with sometimes disastrous results.
Lack of access to appropriate healthcare or healthcare at all in most low cost federal accredited health Latino centers across this country drives thousands of Latino trans people to access dangerous black market treatments for transition related and primary healthcare
As part of our nation's fastest growing minority community, I hope their cisgender brothers and sisters recognize that my trans Latino brothers and sisters are integral parts of their community.
While some issues are unique to the Latino trans community that need to be resolved as expeditiously as possible, there are others they share with the Latino community at large
We also hope that 2014 is also a much brighter year for the Latin@ trans community.
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