Chilean Trans Rights Bill Unanimously Advances

The election of President-elect Michelle Bachelet is already paying dividends for the Chilean transgender community.

Bachelet regained the seat she held from 2006-2010 and while she was gone was appointed the first executive director of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment Of Women, a post she held until March 2013 until she resigned to run for the presidency.

I'm mentioning President-elect Bachelet's backstory to set the stage for the good news coming from this South American nation where there has been positive movement on trans issues since 2012.  

Trans activists in Chile began a push that year to enact a trans identity law similar to the one on the eastern side of the Andes in Argentina as their public healthcare plan announced in May 2012 they would begin to cover SRS..  

It seems that the Chilean National Congress heard their trans constituents.  They advanced on a 29-0 vote with three abstentions a bill that would allow trans Chileans to legally change their name and gender without surgical intervention, hormonal treatments and psychiatric or psychological evaluations.

It was a move widely applauded by Chilean rights activists.  The bill is also supported by President-elect Bachelet who returns to office March 11.  

"Our lawmakers have recognized our dignity,” Andrés Ignacio Duarte Rivera, founder of the Organization of Transsexuals for the Dignity of Diversity, a Chilean trans advocacy group, told the Washington Blade after the vote.

The deadline to submit proposed amendments to the bill will be March 3, but so far so good for our Chilean trans cousins.

Why PLC 122's Passage Was Important In Brazil

Sergio Viula talks about conditions in Brazil in the wake of the failure of PLC 122 to pass.the Brazilian Congress.

TBLG Rights Bill Fails In Brazil

The eyes of the world's TBLG community were turned toward Brazil yesterday as Senator Ana Rita as promised brought PLC 122 to a vote.  

It was a TBLG human rights bill that had been stalled by fundamentalist religious forces for 12 years as increasing number of trans and gay people have died in the country or faced escalating levels of horrific anti-BTLG violence.

It didn't go well.  29 senators voted against it, on 12 in favor and 2 abstained.    The defeat also erased the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity from a review of Brazil's penal code.  

PLC 122 would have prohibited discrimination or inciting violence on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation and it went down to defeat as evangelical leaders like Silas Malafaia gloated  

“You can swear, we’re hahahaha plc122 [the bill outlawing LGBT discrimination] is dead, hahahha try something else and wait a few years hahahaaha, if God laughs at the wicked, imagine me, hahahaha.”

“Our chances to add the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity into the penal code are now near impossible,” said Luiz Henrique Coletto, Vice President of the Secular Humanist League of Brazil (LiHS), in a statement to LGBTQ Nation.

“This means that we have no nationwide federal protection against discrimination of, and violence against LGBT people,” he added. “The vote was a clear demonstration of anti-LGBT prejudice in Brazil.”

The Brazilian Forces of Intolerance won this round, but TBLG activists in Brazil, despite the disappointing defeat are continuing the fight and considering other options.

They have been successful in the Brazilian court system, and will go in that direction to obtain the human rights they so desperately need.  With Brazil set to host both the upcoming World Cup this summer and the Olympics in 2016, local activists are calling upon the world to do more to financially support indigenous Brazilian LGBT rights organizations.

They are also calling upon the United States, the European Union, the UN, the OAS and other international human rights actors to pressure President Dilma Rousseff and Brazilian legislators into getting thei nation to live up to the various human rights agreements they have signed.


Said attorney Paulo Roberto, a member of GADvS (Group of Lawyers for Sexual Diversity), to LGBTQ Nation, “Brazil is in violation of international resolutions and statements where it signed a commitment to protect GLBT citizens, both at the level of the United Nations and Organization of American States.”

“Furthermore,” he added, “If this country is not safe for our own people considering anti-gay violence, how can it be safe for people coming for the world cup and the Olympics?”

Indeed.  If it's not safe for its TBLG children, sooner or later it won't be safe for you ostensibly cis and straight Brazilians either.

Brazil Miss Trans 2013 Pageant

The second annual Miss Trans 2013 pageant was held m Rio de Janeiro recently.   It had 28 competitors from 11 Brazilian states competing not only for the pageant crown at Rio's Joao Caetano Theater, but an all expense paid trip to Thailand as Brazil's representative for the 2014 edition of the Miss International Queen pageant

It was also offering a chance to go to Thailand and get a paid gender realignment surgery.

But this pageant also has a serious purpose in mind according to its sponsor Majorie Marchi, the president of Astra-Rio, the Rio Association for Transvestites and Transsexuals.    “The competition was an important demonstration for people who traditionally have no voice in society and are still seen as victims or as culprits on the police blotter,” said Marchi “The trans community doesn’t just want the right to food and sustenance. We are about music, entertainment and art.”

The pageant's goals are to increase the visibility of trans people in Brazil, and was also sponsored by the city government of Rio, fashion designer Almir França, a Brazilian plastic surgery clinic and the Kamol Cosmetic Hospital in Thailand.  


The winner of Miss Trans 2013 was 21 year old Raika Ferraz, who is from Sao Paulo and started her transition at 17.   She will represent Brazil at the next Miss International Queen contest in Pattaya next November..

And as for whether she will have the SRS that she won as part of the prize package for winning the title?

She says as of right now, no.  'I don’t need this operation, I already feel like a woman. I have been taking hormone tablets for more than four years now to create my curves and increase my bust size and I am really happy with the results," Ferraz says confidently.

A Brazilian girl like us, Marcela Ohio won the Miss International Queen 2013 title, and in the history of this pageant that started in 2004, no nation has ever had back to back winners of it.  

Will the Brazilians and Raika Ferraz be able to pull that feat off?    We'll see if she can in November.

Brazilian Senator Calling For TBLG Discrimination Bill Vote

As anyone who has attended TDOR's or been paying attention over the last few years can tell you, violence against transwomen in Brazil has alarmingly spiked in the last few years.   In just this year alone there were 292 Brazilians lost to anti-TBLG violence with the vast majority of them being trans women.  

A bill has been proposed in Brazil, PLC 122 to ban discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.  It would also criminalize incitement of violence against TBLG Brazilians and punish violations of those offenses with up to three years in prison. 

However, the evangelical lobby in the country is throwing a nasty cup in the legislative Kool-Aid.   As they do everywhere else around the world when they don't get their way, they are having a hissy fit.   They are threatening to punish legislators who vote YES for passage of PLC 122 and President Dilma Rousseff who is up for re-election for a second term in the Brazilian national elections slated to happen on October 5, 2014.  

According to reports published in LGBTQ Nation, nervous legislators were preparing to cave to the evangelical phobes and shelve the bill until after those elections to appease them.

Never mind the fact that according to Grupo Gay de Bahia, 44% of the worlds' LGBT murders occur in Brazil, and one is committed against a Brazilian BTLG person every 21 hours.   The 292 murders this year were an unacceptable increase over the number committed in 2012, and the 2012 BTLG murder numbers were a 21% increase over the number of anti-TBLG murders that occurred in 2011.  

Senator Ana Rita of the ruling Labor Party plans to defy the government and call the vote for Wednesday despite instructions from President Rousseff and Brazilian Minister of Institutional Relations Ideli Salvatti to delay the vote on the sorely needed anti-TBLG discrimination measure until after the October elections.

Brazilian TBLG people are pushing back against the evangelical wing pressure by organizing a protest in Sao Paulo later today and planning to be in Brasilia for the PLC 122 vote on Wednesday.   

Human rights organizations are also making their voices heard and calling for it to happen, stating that the Brazilian TBLG community has waited a dozen years for their government to be drum majors for justice.

They also pointed out Brazil will be hosting the World Cup this summer and the Summer Olympics in Rio in 2016, and need to do so not only for its LGBT citizens, but visitors coming here to attend those two major international sporting events. 

“The anti-discrimination law will send a powerful message that gays, lesbians, bisexual and trans people in Brazil are fully protected by Brazilian law,” said Andre Banks, Executive Director of All Out to LGBTQ Nation.

It'll not only send that message should PLC 122 pass to TBLG people inside the fifth largest nation on the planet, but around the world as well.

And that law needs to happen.

History Making Argentine Trans Woman Murdered

Sad news coming out of Argentina.  

32 year old Laura Aguilar, one of the first people to obtain a gender ID change under the Argentine Gender Identity Law in Tierra del Fuego province, was killed in the city of Rio Grande.

She was fatally stabbed May 12 in the home of her former partner Carlos Humbeto Traberg in what appears to be a relationship quarrel that went horribly wrong.

According to a spokesperson, Aguilar had gone to the home of the 55 year old Traberg where he cares for his mother with the intention of trying to rekindle their relationship.   In the midst of a heated argument in the kitchen he took out a knife and stabbed Aguilar in the heart and neck.  

Aguilar had recently filed a complaint because she was facing resistance in terms of local implementation of the nearly year old Gender Identity Law and access to trans specific medical care mandated in it.  With the help of local OHA activists and the backing of Tierra del Fuego provincial Governor Fabiana Rios she prevailed and was on track to get SRS before her untimely death.
   
She is being mourned by her activist colleagues in Argentina and hailed for her history making role.


H/T Eduarda Santos Transfofa em Blog

Trans History-Roberta Close

Contrary to this article implying that trans models like Lea T, Felipa Torres and Carol Marra are some 21st century twist to the Brazilian modeling scene, that isn't the case.  There was a trans woman strutting the catwalks in Brazil and elsewhere in the world back in the 80's.

This latest group of twentysomething Brazilian models need to bow down and recognize their trans sister who paved the way for them to be able to strut those catwalks in Rio, New York, Milan and Paris.

The pioneering transwoman in question is Roberta Gambine Moreira, who was born on this date in 1964 in Rio de Janiero.  

Known professionally as Roberta Close, she started surreptitiously taking hormones in her teens and began her modeling and film career at age 17.

The 5'10 1/2" beauty won the Miss Gay Brazil pageant at age 20, appeared in a popular Brazilian soap opera and print ads. 

She was the first trans woman to appear on the cover of Brazilian Playboy (while preoperative), and hosted a late night talk show in her homeland.  Even though she was comfortable with her pre-op status during that time period, she eventually had SRS in Britain in 1989, appeared in a post-operative photo spread in the  Brazilian mens magazine Sexy and was voted the 'Most Beautiful Woman In Brazil'.

In 1993 she married her Swiss manager, Roland Granacher, in Europe since in Roman Catholic Brazil she wasn't able to do so.



She also fought a lengthy legal battle in the Brazilian court system to challenge the laws that refused to recognize her femininity in her documentation.  She lost an initial round in 1997 and another in 2003, but eventually won her case to have her birth documentation changed.

On March 4, 2005, Roberta Close acquired legal status as a female in Brazil after Judge Leise Rodrigues de Lima Espiritu Santo of the 9th Family Court of Rio de Janeiro legally recognized her as a woman.

Roberta Close is the reason that the current crop of Brazilian trans models have their opportunities to make it in the fashion world today, and hope these 21st century ladies appreciate the barriers Roberta broke down for them.


   

Miss Transsexual Brazil 2012 Pageant

Brazil has been a good news, bad news place for our transsisters living there.   While this emerging South American economic power nation has free SRS coverage in their national health plan, is the home of trans supermodel Lea T and has had transwomen openly walking the runways at Rio's fashion week since Roberta Close first did so in the 1980's, at the same time it has seen a horrific spike in anti-trans violence and murders aimed at our Brazilian trans sisters.

Back on October 30 the first ever Miss Transsexual Brazil 2012 pageant happened in Rio de Janeiro, and here's some video from AFP documenting what happened during that first ever pageant  

Chile Activists Beginning Push For Trans Identity Law

With Argentina's successful passage and enactment of a groundbreaking Gender Identity Law, their next door neighbors on the western side of the Andes Mountains want to take a page out of the Argentinian activist playbook and enact a similar law in their country.

According to Blabbeando, the Chilean Transexual Organiztion for the Dignity of Diversity (OTD) has already produced a few ads confronting discrimination against transgender individuals but started launching on June 10 a campaign specifically advocating for a nationwide gender identity law.

They are beginning to produce ads and videos like this one with many more to come.



Since trans human rights issues have been on a roll lately in Latin America, South America and the Western Hemisphere, we can only hope that the Chilean 'Fir The Dignity Of Identity' themed campaign results in the same successful conclusion that happened on the eastern side of the Andes.

Chile To Cover SRS

South America is quickly becoming the most trans friendly continent on our planet.  

Argentina just passed a groundbreaking Gender Identity Law  and now their next door neighbors in Chile have made some moves that benefit their trans population.

Chile will soon cover sex reassignment surgeries under its public health plan in order to allow citizens of limited means to “recover their true sexual identity,” Health Minister Jaime Manalich said.

Brazil and Cuba are the other nations in Latin America that offer SRS as part of their national health plans to their citizens.

Until now SRS operations were only offered in private clinics at a cost of $20,000 to $30,000 but will now be performed in public hospitals in the capital of Santiago and the cities of Concepcion and Valparaiso, the health minister said late Thursday.

Before the reforms, “a poor person had no possibility of completing the process of femininization or masculinization,” Rolando Jimenez, head of the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh), told AFP.

The cost for SRS covered by the national health plan will now depend on the patient's income bracket, with the poorest citizens able to get the operations for free. 

Chile also enacted other reforms and measures to help prevent discrimination aimed at its TBLG population.  The health ministry ruled that blood banks cannot refuse donors based on sexual orientation and that hospitalized transsexual patients can and should room with patients of their desired gender.

If a nation of 17 million people can do this, what holding up the United States from doing so?

Argentine Senate Passes Gender Identity Law

The United States rainbow community wasn't the only one getting some wonderful news today.

My trans cousins in Argentina according to Blabbeando and Rod 2.0 tweets witnessed their national legislature passing a bill affirming their human rights.  

Been talking on these electronic pages about their Gender Identity Law that has been winding its way through the Argentine legislature.

It would make it easier for transgender peeps in that country to change their national identity documents to reflect who they are now in addition to groundbreaking benefits that ensures access to trans specific medical care in their national health plan..

It passed the Argentine Chamber of Deputies by a lopsided 167-17 margin and has been percolating in the Argentine Senate pending today's vote

It passed the Argentine Senate today on a 55-0 vote with one abstention and is now headed to President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's desk for her signature.

Nice to see at least one country doing some groundbreaking things for its trans population and hope other nations emulate this.

Argentina Gender Identity Law Advancing In Senate

I've been keeping up with the Argentine legislature's attempt to pass the groundbreaking Gender Identity Law that would make it easier for its trans citizens to change names and gender codes on their identity documents without surgical intervention.

Here's the great updated news about how that is progressing for our Argentine trans cousins.   According to Blabbeando the Gender Identity Law is now in the Argentine senate.  

It passed a Senate committee with the identical language from the one passed in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies by a lopsided 167-17 margin.   It is scheduled to hit the Argentine Senate floor for debate on May 9 and if it passes, President Kirchner has indicated she will sign it into law when it hits her desk.

Wow.  More groundbreaking trans positive bills from a Latin American national legislature on the verge of becoming law. 

It leads me to ask the question when am I going to see the same trans positive law coming from my own national legislature?

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez Sworn In For Second Term

Political history was made not only in Argentina but in Latin America as well yesterday as Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was sworn in for her second term in a ceremony attended by female Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; the presidents of Bolivia, Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay and Uruguay.

The Unted States was represented by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Ambassador to Argentina Vilma S. Martinez and President Barack Obama's senior adviser on Latin America, Daniel Restrepo.
.

She is the first female leader to be reelected in Latin America and blew out her nearest challenger, Hermes Binner by a 37 percentage point margin.   It was the largest margin of victory in an Argentine  presidential election since Juan Peron won with 62% of the vote in 1973.

It wasn't an easy day for her as she remembered her late husband, former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner after accepting the wooden presidential baton decorated with a gold-and-silver version of Argentina's national shield.

Fernandez remarked, "This is not an easy day. ... Despite the joy, there is something and someone missing."

Her second term expires in 2015 and she has pursued economic policies that have largely isolated Argentina from the economic woes other nations are experiencing. 

We've also witnessed social progress in Argentina as evidenced by the Gender Identity Law now winding its way through the Argentine Congress and the resumptions of prosecutions of officials responsible for human rights violations during the Argentine military dictatorship that lasted from 1976-1983.

Here's hoping that she has continued success in leading Argentina and being a role model for future leaders, male and female in her nation and beyond its borders to follow.

Argentine Gender Identity Law Overwhelmingly Approved In Chamber of Deputies

Was perusing XQsi Magazine and was overjoyed to read that our Argentinian trans brothers and sisters are one step closer to having their Gender Identity Law become a reality.

The groundbreaking Gender Identity Law would be the first of its kind in Latin America and the world that doesn't require medical, psychiatric or surgical interventions to simply change your name and gender marker on identity documents.

If passed, the Gender ID Law would simplify the procedures needed for a person to change the name and gender code on all government documentation.   Instead of going through the court system to do so, under the proposed law you would make a request through the National Register of Persons.  For trans youth under age 18 the request would have to be made through their parents or legal guardian. 

The other wonderful feature about the Gender Identity Law is that it would guarantee that Argentinian trans people be granted access to vital and gender-affirming health services, including full or partial surgical interventions and hormone replacement therapies.

It was introduced earlier this year and according to an XQsi Magazine post by Danny Olvera cleared a joint meeting of the General Legislation and Justice Committees in early November.

On the November 30 last day of the session for the Argentinian Camber of Deputies,  the Gender Identity Laws passed on a lopsided 167-17.vote with 7 abstentions.

Needless to say the local rainbow community groups and trans people residing there were ecstatic about the fantastic legislative news.

“We can’t believe that the margin with which [the bill] has been approved had been so broad, and that all political blocs had accompanied the project, ” said Marcela Romero, president of the Argentine Association of Trans* People (ATTTA) and Secretary General of the Argentine Federation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans people (FALGBT).

The Gender Identity Law now moves on to the Argentine Senate for its approval.  If it passes there it will need Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's signature to become law.. 


H/T  XQsi Magazine