LSE discovers that the country’s gender estating regulations may have reproduced inequalities and injustices for trans people
Last Sea September 30, 2020 06. 31 BST
Every day, when Pau Gonzalez wakes up and looks at his phone, he feels he’s running a call center. As the founder of the activist organization Hombres Trans Panama, he was inundated with members of the transgender network who were looking for recommendations on how to sail in Panama. Social estating legislation related to sexual segregation. Some people who called were warned or mistreated by the police. Others say they feel suicidal and afraid to faint.
In April, Panama announced one of Latin America’s most competitive Covid-19 policies, which dictates the days when its citizens can faint according to their gender, as shown on their national identity cards.
Gender-blocking regulations, despite everything that was lifted this month, meant that women can only leave their homes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and men on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
A study by the London School of Economics found that the reaction “did not recognize gender identities and can reproduce inequalities and injustices for non-binary Americans with unknown long-term effects. “
The questionable measures aimed to halve the number of other people on the streets at any given time, but regulations left other trans people vulnerable to victimization.
Gonzalez said he was devastated by the announcement. These measures meant that I could only faint based on my assigned sex at birth, as shown on my ID card. I’m afraid I’m the only man who faints in the days of the woman. “
In the first week of lockdown, Gonzalez called through 86 other people for help buying must-have items, too scared to leave their homes.
Two incidents on the first day of the lockdown revealed contradictions: a trans boy who came out according to gender on his ID card was expelled from a supermarket because, he was told, he would stand out among the women, while a trans woguy was arrested one day for dating women, but that didn’t fit the gender on his card. “The police humiliated her and said she wasn’t a real slut,” Gonzalez said.
Between April 1 and September 14, Men Trans Panama recorded 50 incidents of discrimination. “It’s like we’re forced to be imprisoned in our own homes, depending on others bringing us food and medicine,” he said.
Gonzalez, one of dozens of other people interviewed for the LSE study, which is expected to be published next month, collected GPS knowledge to track the mobility of men and women between February 15 and May 29, and used the effects to interpret how politics exacerbated existing inequalities.
“Politics has failed transgender, non-sexist or binary Panamanians since its inception,” said Clare Wenham, assistant professor of fitness policy.
“More research is needed to ensure that long-term policies do not use gender in a way that erases individual identities or overcomes existing inequalities, i. e. those shown through law enforcement.
As one interviewee told investigators: “The other transgender people in Panama are humiliated and accused of breaking the law under quarantine policy just because they are themselves.
Huguy Rights Watch researcher Cristian González Cabrera, who documented violence and discrimination against other trans people during lockdown, said: “Other trans people are accustomed to violence and discrimination, but gender quarantine has pointed the finger at them for abuse through police. and the discretion of companies to make a decision about who is a boy and who is a woguy ».
He warned that stigma would not be avoided just because the blockade had been lifted and Panama would have to introduce gender popularity legislation so that others could easily modify their documents to reflect their identity.
“The vital moment is for the government to take this moment to teach the public about sexual orientation and gender identity more sometimes; you will have to teach Panamanians that other trans people are part of our society and will have to respect them. “
On July 16, the government issued a transphobia recognizing and saying that Panama respected the “diversity of identity and expression”. He also announced sanctions for those caught as guilty of discrimination.
For Gonzalez, whose organization has supported 173 other trans people in six regions of Panama, politics is a catalyst for change.
“We want laws for the LGBT community, adding legislation on sexual popularity and equality in marriage. The pandemic brought out the most productive and worst in other people, but it gave us the possibility to highlight the rights of other trans people and I hope that Panama will decide be in the right aspect of the story.