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From Gegê: Triangle / when community - lead memory initiatives collaborate with legal work and policy- makers

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We expose and defend the right to memory and recognition - Carolina

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Our struggle continues and we have to move forward. No human being has the right to humiliate us, to exploit us, because we are different. - Carolina

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Carolina:

I am proudly the first trans woman in Latin America to have received reparations for the persecution and deprivation of our freedom.

On May 17, 2018, we made history. This history must repeat itself. In the same place where 40 years ago we were arrested, beaten and raped, the state asked us for forgiveness.

Our struggle continues and we have to move forward. No human being has the right to humiliate us, to exploit us, because we are different.

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Karla:

Sex work is in many cases the only livelihood of the transgender community in Argentina.  This community is forced into prostitution due to the marginalization it suffers in the workplace.

Although there have been improvements in terms of rights, still in many Argentine provinces the old codes have not been overthrown.

From the archive, we intend to create a transversal tool that reaches all state institutions.

We believe that the archive means justice, justice for the colleagues who were left behind and whose story was never told. We have the right to be part of society.

We use the archive as a tool for the social change we need.

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Nothing could have been achieved if our struggle had not been a collective one. - Karla Ojeda

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Marzia:

I am a survivor of the dictatorship period. And I don't say victim because I consider that the victims are our comrades who, unfortunately, are no longer with us today.

On the same day that a comrade committed suicide in a penitentiary, I was detained in the same place. We heard our comrade hit the ground.

The period of dictatorship in Argentina ended in 83, but the code of misdemeanors did not expire until 2010. I went into exile in 1997, when the dictatorship had already passed but the persecution was even harsher.

We created the transvestite trans memory archive in Santa Fe to dignify and memorialize the lives of our colleagues. We have a moral and ethical obligation to vindicate their death. When I came back from exile, there were only 13 out of 40 trans women in Santa Fe.

Creating the archive of memory for us is a tool against discrimination.

In the memories not only the past is written, but also the present. If we want to understand the demands of the transvestite transgender community today and project ourselves into the future, we have to understand the past first.

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"In the memories is written not only the past but also the present" Marzia

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From Tatiana:

1.- Brief overview of the situation of the LGTBI population in Russia

A Russian independence agency conducted a poll in 2020 to assess perceptions of the LGTBI population. 18% of Russians believe that Gays and Lesbians should be eliminated. 32% of respondents think they should be isolated from society.

Hate crimes committed against LGTBI persons are never investigated nor considered aggravates. Even if the perpetrator states the hatred motive, that is not taken into account in court.

In General, the space for civil society in Russia has been narrowing during the past 10 years. Therefore, there is little space to advocate for new policies.

2.- Our work

In 2012- 2015, activists understood that transgender people in Russia changed their ID, but activists didn't know how the process was happening. The Goals of the project were to help as many people as possible to legally transition without having to undergo surgical procedures or therapy.

Judges believed that only surgery could lead to a legal gender transition. And transgender people were obliged to undergo medical interventions and acquire a psychiatric diagnosis.

I was in more than 100 trials, we won the majority of them. We started working with medical specialists and we realized that even most conservatives believed that legal gender recognition should be able to happen without medical interventions.

At the end of 2017, a new draft of a transition certificate was published by the minister of health. It stated that a legal transition was possible without medical interventions but obliged transgender people to undergo a six-month psychiatric evaluation.

Lessons learned:

When you see a clear target for your advocacy - in our case, the certificate-, in some cases, it might be better to not advocate because your advocacy can intervene in the process.

Even conservative medical specialists can become your allies.

3. Ways to fight for LGTBI rights

Ask for legal advice, build a community of law practitioners.

If there are cases concerning LGTB people being examined by international bodies, other organizations can send a request to intervene as a third party. This can be useful for the victim, because thirds parties can provide information regarding, for example, historical discrimination against trans people or other contextual information the court might not have.

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The implementation of our laws and the way these play out in the ground is often conservative, violent and discriminative against the LGTBI community - Emilia Potenza

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Marzia Echenique, Karla Ojeda and Carolina Boetti, Archivo de la Memoria Travesti Trans (The Transgender Transvestite Memory Archive) – Argentina

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Marzia Echenique, Karla Ojeda and Carolina Boetti, Archivo de la Memoria Travesti Trans (The Transgender Transvestite Memory Archive) – Argentina

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Marzia Echenique
Archivo de la Memoria Travesti Trans (The Transgender Transvestite Memory Archive) –
Argentina

Marzia Echenique is an actor, radio host, human rights activist working for and with transvestites and
transgender people. She is a survivor of the last military dictatorship of Argentina, where she was persecuted for
her gender identity. After living in exile in Italy, she returned to Rosario where she currently lives and works. She
is a founding member of the Trasvesti Trans community as well as the Travesti Memory Archive of the Santa Fe
province.

Karla Ojeda
Archivo de la Memoria Travesti Trans (The Transgender Transvestite Memory Archive) –
Argentina

Karla is a member of the trans-knowledge program at the National University of Rosario, Argentina. The
program runs under the department of science and technology for innovation at UNR. She is also a founding
member of the Trasvesti Trans community as well as the Travesti Memory Archive of the Santa Fe province.

Carolina Boetti
Archivo de la Memoria Travesti Trans (The Transgender Transvestite Memory Archive) –
Argentina

Film and theatre actor, performer, comedian and activist for the rights of transvestites and trans people. In
2018, she was the first trans woman to benefit from reparations after suffering state violence in the period of
dictatorship and post-dictatorship in the Province of Santa Fe, Argentina. Carolina is also a founding member of
the Trasvesti Trans community as well as the Travesti Memory Archive in Santa Fe.

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Emilia Potenza, Curator, Apartheid Museum – South Africa

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Emilia Potenza, Curator, Apartheid Museum – South Africa

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Emilia Potenza is the curator of exhibitions and education at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. She is passionate about history, education and art and the intersection between them.

She and her colleagues have created opportunities for a
wide range of visitors to engage with South Africa’s history, and to draw on the crucial lessons that this offers.

In association with the Apartheid Museum, she was curated the permanent exhibitions of several other museums in South Africa – including the Nelson Mandela Museum in Mthatha, the Steve Biko Centre in Ginsberg, the Nelson Mandela Capture Site Museum in KwaZulu-Natal and the Desmond Tutu Museum in Cape Town.

Throughout her career, Emilia has been involved in fighting racism and discrimination through education. As a student and then a teacher, she was actively involved in opposing apartheid in the late 1970s and 1980s, principally through
building South Africa’s first non-racial teachers’ organisation. She has also written many groundbreaking History &amp; English textbooks.

Emilia has worked at the Apartheid Museum since its inception in 2001.

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Tatiana Glushkova, Memorial Human Rights Center Memorial and Stimul - Russi

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Tatiana Glushkova, Memorial Human Rights Center Memorial and Stimul - Russi

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Tatiana Glushkova holds a degree in law from Lomonosov Moscow State University (2011). She works as a lawyer at Human Rights Centre “Memorial” (Moscow, Russia). In this capacity she represents applicants before the European Court of Human Rights in cases brought against Russia on matters including right to life, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, right to respect for private and family life, right to non-discrimination. In 2015 she co-founded Moscow LGBT-Initiative Group “Stimul”, an initiative which provides legal help to victims of discrimination and hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In 2015-2021 she used to be a board member of this group. In 2015-2021 she also used to be is a legal program officer at Transgender Legal Defense Project, an initiative aimed at improving the situation of transgender people in Russia. Tatiana co-authored a number shadow reports to different UN Treaty Bodies and Special Rapporteurs describing the situation of LGBT-people in Russia.