Public Story
Soraya
In Argentina there is a city whose design and planning was a paradigm of urbanism in the 19th century: La Plata. It is the symbol of a generation of thinkers and aristocrats, known as the generation of 80, who pursued the construction of the modern nation, normalizing any trace of diversity. The city has a green space every six blocks, squares or parks that officially bear the name of a general or colonel; but in the worlds, which also inhabit space, they have been given other names, names that recall fellow transvestites murdered in hate crimes.
On Saturday, June 19, 2021, Wanda Soraya, a migrant trans woman, was in the city's Red Zone, working as a sex worker, when a man from a car attacked her with bullets and killed her at point-blank range.
Valentina Pereyra, secretary general of the Association of Meretrices Women of Argentina (AMMAR), explained that among the multiple violations suffered by transvestites and transsexuals in Argentina is access to justice: “In Soraya's case the case has not advanced practically since on the Saturday she was murdered ”. Social transvesticide is the sum of all the violence that exists against the transvestite-trans collective, whose last link is transvesticide, transfemicide and transhomicide.
The expulsion from their homes at a very early age, lack of access to education, health, lack of media representation, media criminalization or hate crimes make up a complex chain of gears, of human rights violations, that explain why in Argentina the average life span of transvestites and trans people is less than 40 years.
Chronicle by Charo Zeballos for Pikara Magazine (Spain)
Photos: Luciana Demichelis
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