July 17, 2020 - In six months, 2020 is already proving to be one of the deadliest documented years for TGI people. According to an HRC report, that has been tracking the murders of Trans Women in the United States, as of July 2020, there have been at least 23 known trans people that have been found dead. Many of the victims have been Black Trans women and as many as 9 being killed in a stretch of two weeks. (Clifton) This past week alone, there are reports of two deaths in Southern California, thus it is not enough for California to call itself a champion of progressive change when we have seen the blatant way that this system harms, attacks, and kills TGI people. As the TransLatin@ Coalition, we are devastated to hear about violence happening to our siblings once again and to know it is happening so close to home, hurts. We mourn the deaths of Marilyn Cazares a TransLatina, and Angela Martinez Gomez an indigenous Muxe from Oaxaca, Mexico.
Marilyn Cazares was a 22-year old TransLatina that was murdered in Brawley, California - east of San Diego. Immediately after her death was made public, numerous media outlets, her family, and local authorities have consistently misgendered and dead named Marilyn. Those in her chosen community have stated her name was Marilyn time and time again. Too often we see a pattern that even after passing, the humanity of trans people is stripped by being dead named and misgendered throughout platforms that are supposed to “honor” us. This was the same case for Alexa Negrón Luciano who was murdered in Puerto Rico and widely misgendered by media outlets. A pattern that dehumanizes TGI people and is exacerbated in every facet of society. In order to honor Marilyn’s life, we need to remember her by her name and for the resilient being that she was.
Angela Martinez Gomez was a 42-year old indigenous Muxe from Oaxaca, Mexico. She was an essential worker who had been working at Burger King for over 15 years and who died of COVID at the hands of her employer. That despite showing symptoms of COVID for a week, her employer blamed the reason for her passing on her hormones. This is infuriating! Angela was forced to work! For TGI/Gender-Expansive people, the jobs that are attainable become a privilege, because of how hard it was to get said job in the first place. Had Angela refused to work, it was possible that she would be faced with the lived experiences of other TGI people, poverty, homelessness, informal economics, and so on. Arguably, the workforce is often a thin line between struggle, survival, and sustainability.
Other stories that came to light this week are those of Lea Castillo. A Trans Woman who was attacked in 2017 and despite being beaten with several injuries, the doctors and officers did not give her the adequate resources she needed. It took Lea three and a half years to come forward and denounce the violence she experienced through the system’s lack of action. This is a story that TGI people face far too often, there is blame and gaslighting put on victims of violence when they experience harm instead of addressing the system in place that allows for violence to happen. Hence the urgency to not allow for ambiguous language to be adopted by the Trump Administration when it comes to medical professionals and the assistance they provide. As it is, TGI people, are consistently fighting for and urging to be heard and seen as valid within the medical field.
The other person whose story was made public this week was of Niurka Flores. A Trans Latina migrant from El Salvador was attacked in Baltimore, Maryland for being trans. How many more names of TGI people have to be made known in hashtags and GoFundMe’s for the world to make cultural changes on the way they treat TGI people?
Enough is enough! We call on our community and our allies to join us in taking action to stop the violence from happening. Stay tuned for actions taken by us at the TransLatin@ Coalition to uplift the stories of our siblings. We want to encourage people to stay tuned across our social media networks on some next steps. We want to ensure that we are celebrating, fighting for, and uplifting our siblings in the same breath we mourn them.