“STOP KILLING US” 2019-2020 REGIONAL REPORT
We have learned from the NTRO of the increasing loss and lack of employment opportunities for transgender people, as well as the absence of employment legislation that promotes their inclusion. In this sense, a reform is necessary to grant access to the health care system, and provide greater support to trans people who are entitled to the same rights as any other citizen. URUGUAY In Uruguay, the situation of the transgender population has been dramatically affected by the change in administration between 2019 and 2020. For the Uruguayan transgender community, 2019 was marked by a strong government presence and opportunities to participate in government projects and public service exams. Trans people were included in public policies and received firm support to consolidate and promote the sustainability of the trans movement. With the change in administration in 2020, transgender people are once again victims of hate speech since the new agenda is pro-life; that is, it promotes the views held by fundamentalist religious sectors. There is a major cut in the budget allocated to social, education and health spending, and no more programs to include vulnerable populations were designed. In 2019, the plebiscite for the Comprehensive Transgender Law passed in 2018 was rejected. The continuity in force of this law constitutes a milestone in the fight ensued in other countries in which it is still important to ensure trans people access to economic, social, cultural and environmental rights. We need to assert children and youth right protection and the right to have a decent adult life. The progress and setbacks experienced in 2020 set the tone of what governments do and what type of governments they are. Marcela Romero, REDLACTRANS Regional Coordinator, asserts: “There are governments that buy weapons to kill instead of buying ventilators to save lives; this pandemic evidenced which governments provide an actual answers and which governments invest in health.”
4.1. The ideology of hatred, a key aspect of the regional context “Governments need to understand that whenever a transgender person dies in a hospital or a hotel room, it is a hate crime because the state is absent. We also need judicial systems to understand what hate crimes against transgender women are.” Marcela Romero, REDLACTRANS Regional Coordinator.
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