SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Fabricio Chicas is aware of precisely what is going to occur. As quickly as he fingers in his ID, the worker on the opposite facet of the counter will have a look at him with suspicion, asking why he carries a doc that identifies him as feminine.
Whether it’s a financial institution, a hospital or a human sources workplace, the 49-year-old Salvadoran gives the identical reply: I’m a transgender man who has not been in a position to change his identify and gender on his ID.
His destiny is shared by many transgender folks in El Salvador, a Central American nation the place the affect of Catholicism and evangelicalism is pervasive, abortion is banned, and the legalization of same-sex marriage appears unlikely for now.
In 2022, the nation’s Supreme Court decided that the lack of an individual to alter their identify due to gender identification constitutes discriminatory remedy. A ruling ordered the National Assembly to enact a reform that facilitates that course of, however the deadline expired three months in the past, and the lawmakers didn’t comply.
“It is part of a much broader pattern of weakening the rule of law and judicial independence,” mentioned Cristian González Cabrera, LGBTQ rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Since President Nayib Bukele’s party won a supermajority in the Assembly after the 2021 elections, democratic institutions have been under attack by him and his allies.”
In current years, a transgender man and lady pursued identify and gender modifications through the judicial system. The judges dominated of their favor, however municipal staff refused to alter their start certificates and filed an attraction on the Supreme Court, avoiding compliance with the ruling.
Neither of the plaintiffs know what is going to occur subsequent.
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When he was little, Chicas’ mom agreed to decorate him in masculine garments and known as him “my boy.” Things modified when he turned 9.
“I was abused, and my mom started to overprotect me,” he mentioned.
Perhaps feeling that treating Chicas as a boy uncovered him to hurt, she dressed him once more in woman’s clothes and braided his hair. “I was so depressed I didn’t want to live,” he recalled.
When he turned 15, he met a transgender man who suggested him to get hormonal injections and begin his bodily transformation. The man additionally instructed urgent his breasts with an iron to forestall them from rising.
Chicas ended up within the hospital, with an an infection produced by hematomas, and his mom made him swear he would by no means alter his physique to seem like a person.
Though he mentioned sure, he promised one thing to himself: I’ll develop up, discover a job and depart.
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Early in a transition, lack of assist from one’s family is usually the largest problem, mentioned Mónica Linares.
The 43-year-old transgender lady left her residence when she turned 14 and began her transition. She at the moment works as an activist on the group ASPIDH Arcoiris Trans.
“It hasn’t been easy, but when you really have an identity and you want to defend what you really want, you are willing to lose everything,” Linares mentioned.
For greater than 15 years, she was a intercourse employee. She misplaced associates to transphobic killings and noticed others migrate due to gangs.
Part of her present work is collaborating with different organizations to assist LGBTQ rights, particularly pressuring lawmakers who present little curiosity in reviewing a gender identification invoice that was introduced by transgender representatives in 2021.
The invoice would adjust to the Supreme Court’s ruling from 2022 and go a step additional, permitting trans folks to alter not solely their names but additionally their gender on official paperwork.
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The lack of IDs which might be per the gender identification of transgender Salvadoreans could make their each day life troublesome. Sometimes these inconveniences are hurtful.
Some staff of web corporations refuse to resolve complaints made by cellphone, alleging that the voice of the particular person issuing the grievance doesn’t match the gender they’ve on file.
Insurers don’t enable transgender folks to register their companions as beneficiaries within the occasion of loss of life, since their pointers state that {couples} should include a person and a lady.
Chicas has had issues accumulating remittances that his sister sends from the United States. He mentioned banks have denied him loans, and a few employers haven’t employed him as a result of his functions reveal that he’s a transgender man.
In hospitals, he mentioned, nurses have made enjoyable of him. Since Chicas nonetheless requires gynecological consultations, well being personnel typically name him by the feminine identify on his ID or have delayed his appointments, claiming that they can’t deal with “people like him.”
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In this spiritual nation, discrimination in opposition to transgender folks goes past paperwork.
Three many years in the past, Chicas tried to affix the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He attended their temples, learn their texts, interacted with their elders.
“I admire that they are a family that takes care of each other, that they are very loving,” he mentioned.
His mom warned him. saying that Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t welcome sexual range. But Chicas needed to be a part of the congregation a lot that he put away his pants, purchased a skirt and allowed his hair to develop.
He hung out preaching alongside them, however all the time felt monitored.
“In a meeting, they started talking about the black herd and the white herd and I said, “Well, I am the black herd, but I don’t hurt anyone,’” he recalled.
One day, whereas toying with the thought of being baptized, the elders suggested him as if he have been a prison. “You must reread the Bible … Close your bedroom doors when your nieces are visiting.” They additionally needed him thus far one other church member.
When he didn’t conform to date a person, he mentioned, the congregation started to disregard him. Soon after, they denied him entry to the worship corridor, and he ran residence to cry.
I informed you so, his mom mentioned to him.
“So I stopped going. I had to let go. I went back to dressing like a man. I went back to the world, rejected by Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
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A report that Human Rights Watch and COMCAVIS TRANS revealed in 2022 particulars how transgender folks in El Salvador endure violence and discrimination.
“Security forces, gangs, and victims’ families and communities are perpetrators; harm occurs in public spaces, homes, schools, and places of worship,” the report states.
Latin American nations akin to Chile, Argentina, Cuba, Colombia and Mexico have issued legal guidelines that shield some rights of the LGBTQ group and permit transgender folks to switch their official paperwork to match their gender identification. In El Salvador, although, since Bukele got here into energy in 2019, there have been setbacks for LGBTQ folks.
Among different actions, the federal government dissolved the Ministry for Social Inclusion, which performed coaching on gender identification and investigated LGBTQ points nationwide, and it restructured an academic institute for addressing sexual orientation in faculties.
Bukele has mentioned that he won’t ever legalize same-sex marriage and the Catholic Church has backed his place. The archdiocese’s workplace didn’t reply to a number of AP requests for remark.
Socially conservative organizations akin to Fundación Vida SV additionally reject a change in laws.
“The state cannot change the biological reality of a person,” mentioned its founder, Sara Larín.
Violence in opposition to trans girls within the nation has elevated within the final two years, mentioned Rina Montti, director of investigations on the human rights group Cristosal.
“The most dramatic thing is the impunity with which many state officials, particularly police officers, are operating,” she mentioned. “Trans women are assaulted when they feel like it, they can abuse them, they can hire them and then not pay for their services.”
Victims who’ve shared their circumstances with Cristosal have mentioned that in the event that they go to the prosecutor’s workplace, authorities make them wait all day and by no means take their assertion.
“The level of impunity and humiliation is much deeper, because they are not even taken as people who can complain,” Montti mentioned.
A spokesperson for the presidency didn’t reply to a number of requests to interview a police consultant or different authorities officers.
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In the yard of Chicas’ home, Pongo and Polar Bear wave their tails and hop like kangaroos.
Behind the canine comes Elizabeth López, Chicas’ associate for the final seven years. The couple met quickly after Chicas’ mom died, when he determined to make use of hormones and begin his transition.
At first, López appears distrustful. Too many strangers have damage them past phrases.
She bitterly remembers a guard who ordered them to go away a public pool after Chicas mentioned he was unable to take away his shirt, on condition that his bodily transition was incomplete. They each recall the time when he had emergency surgical procedure and well being personnel forbid her to go to, alleging that they have been each “women,” so they might by no means marry or change into a household.
Chicas disagrees. Family, he mentioned, are usually not those who share blood; they’re those who assist one another.
The couple has been sharing their residence with a younger transgender man who left his own residence. Chicas gives care and recommendation.
Recently, the younger man got here residence accompanied by his girlfriend and approached Chicas to introduce them. He informed his girlfriend: “Meet my old man.”
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