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On the day Yineth Layevska was nevertheless able to replace the call on her ID card, she felt reborn when the 38-year-old transgender woman dated her friends over the weekend in Panama City, dressed in high heels, she could not wait for the security guard at the night club door to ask her to withdraw her national ID card , with its newly published female call. “I felt freer,” Layevska said.
But all that has with the pandemic. ” Now,” the transgender activist said, “I’m afraid to pass out. “
In mid-March, when the number of cases shown of COVID-19 began to accumulate in Panama, a global center for transport, the maritime industry and banks, the country brought a measure of social estating that no other country had tested in the past. : citizen segregation founded on sex.
Since then, women have been allowed to faint on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to carry out activities, such as moving to the store, pharmacy or bank; men can do it on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays; on their assigned days, others can only faint for designated two-hour periods depending on whether the newer numbers on their national identity card are even or odd. Departure is not allowed on Sundays and special permission is required to faint for days or hours not designated. for example, in the event of a medical emergency.
The government adopted the measure as “the simplest mechanism” to impose social estating because law enforcement can ostensibly identify men and women based on their physical appearance, but presented no indication of what politics would mean for transgender people, who are at least 1,200 in Panama, according to transgender organizations such as the Panamanian Association of Trans People and Trans Panama Men , who point out that the number is likely to be much higher, as the vast majority of trans citizens in Panama are women.
The Americas are the most damaging continents for other transgender people, accounting for 86% of global murders of transgender people and other gender-specific people between 2008 and 2019, led by Brazil, Mexico and the United States, as shown through the Trans Murder Monitoring project. . . In Latin America, Panama is among the least progressive in terms of transgender rights. Other transgender people donate blood or legally replace sex without undergoing sexual replacement surgery, and same-sex marriage is illegal.
Gender measures generated widespread complaints among LGBTQ, human rights and women’s organizations in Panama and abroad, who saw the norm as discriminatory and more degrading to an already marginalized social group. Penalties for violating Panama’s gender restrictions, which remain high, police reportedly arrested other transgender people for hours, forcing them to pay fines of $50 or more (average wages in the country are $789). Police officers and security guards subjected other transgender people to violence and threats. Between 1 April and July On 17 December, two Panamanian transgender organizations knew at least 28 judicial cases of discrimination against other transgender people, nearly two-thirds of whom were transgender women.
No matter what day she faints, Layevska says she is terrified, if one day she leaves her house assigned to women, along with thousands of other women she identifies with, the security guards at the supermarket or bank will not let her. get in. Although her ID indicates her new feminine name, she presents an “M” for men. She is not a woman, the security guards tell her, with a transparent order: Come back on a day reserved for men. “It makes me feel so helpless, so angry,” Layevska said. Her elderly parents are at higher risk for COVID-19, so she runs errands for the family. “I’m not passing out for fun,” she said. It’s about buying basic products. “
If she is ever assigned to men, Layevska, with her cascade of black hair and thin jeans, says she faces constant harassment. The men laugh at her and yell at her. The guards keep him from entering the shops.
At the end of May, there were just over 11,000 cases shown of the new coronavirus in the country. Then, beginning June 1, the government began to loosen the restrictions, adding the gfinisher-based social estating measure, to allow certain advertising sectors to resume their activity. advertising activities and reviving economic activity (Approximately some of the goods transported by sea between northeast Asia and the east coast of the United States pass through the Panama Canal, which remained open until closure but with reduced capacity).
On June 9, the instances shown exceeded 17,000. The country returned to the lockout and re-imposed its policy of gender social estating, among other measures, to prevent transmission, although it was too late. The virus will spread, i. e. in deficient and overcrowded urban areas, and since then compliance with social esttachment regulations has been left behind. Peru and Bahrain.
According to Panamanian epidemiologist Arturo Rebollon, gender restrictions helped curb the spread of COVID-19 from the beginning, as they were a relatively undeniable form of social estating, however, there was no clinical explanation as to why to use biological sex as a basis. Other visual cues, he added, such as some colored stickers on cars or colorful clothing, may have worked smoothly while mitigating the damage caused to the country’s transgender citizens.
“When you communicate about gender, it’s a gray area,” he says. Peru and Colombia use only even or identity card numbers to limit people’s movement. The two South American countries soon attempted social est estating by gender, but canceled policies after the public responded to police harassment and overcrowding in supermarkets in women’s days.
Venus Tejada, director of the Panamanian Association of Trans People and herself a trans woman, does not oppose the gender social estating measures implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19. But she believes that the approval government deserves to declare unequivocally that other transgender people can faint on days that fit their gender identity. Your phone rings 24 hours a day with consultations of transgender women who say they have run out of food or have been expelled, problems that social esttachment policy has only exacerbated because other transgender people do not feel faint or seek help. Some other transgender people, he said, have not left their homes for weeks or have had to avoid taking hormones or antiretrovirals because they do not have access to essential medications. (15% of transgender women in Panama live with HIV. )
“Now, with the pandemic, we don’t exist,” Tejada said in a video call from her mom’s house. CoVID-19 closures forced Tejada to close her beauty salon, her main source of income, and return to her mom because she may not live alone.
At first, Tejada’s idea that the debatable measure can open up an opportunity to broaden other people’s gender understanding. Many other people in Panama and elsewhere are unaware of the difference between gender, the biological attributes that distinguish men from women and gender, socially constructed roles, and expectations of men and women that influence a person’s self-concept. The Panamanian Association of Trans People has contacted the government and personal security corporations to provide exercise over the rights of transgender people. guards at several supermarket chains across the country. But the police didn’t react, according to the organization. “They don’t know how to treat us, ” said Tejada.
It took more than three months for the past government to publicly recognize the effect of social estating policy on other transgender people. On 16 July, the Ministry of Health nevertheless issued a rejection of all kinds of “xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia or discrimination”. Still, other people only have to faint on the days corresponding to their biological sex. After months of public tension and activism, Tejada says she is “embarrassed” by the response of the past government.
Over the past two weeks, transgender organizations have seen an increase in judicial cases of abuse, and as the coronavirus crisis continues and the lack of economic confidence increases, transgender women are desperate. Many return to the streets and sell sex to defend themselves. They themselves, Tejada said, estimating that about 90% of transgender women in Panama have sex work. Transgender leaders say these women are more vulnerable to police abuse and arrest, which they associate with increasing court cases. improve their reaction by offering transgender women condoms, lubricant, HIV testing, masks, gloves and hand sanitist.
Despite the accumulation of reported judicial cases of abuse and the devastating number of victims of the COVID-19 pandemic, Layevska says there has been a ray of hope. “It has made us more visual as a collective,” he said.
Marta Martínez is a journalist and editor-in-chief of the Fuller Project, a global non-profit newsroom that addresses the global problems affecting women.
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