“STOP KILLING US” 2019-2020 REGIONAL REPORT
states deny access to identity, health, employment, education and housing with the excuse of protecting family rights. “What we see in our region are weak democracies and repressive right-wing governments that have reversed our achievements. We have to engage in debate and work with organizations to confront these governments. We need to strengthen our activism and advocacy.” Marcela Romero, REDLACTRANS Regional Coordinator. Fundamentalist religious groups, which are organized at all levels, have turned their opposition to agendas based on gender equality theories and movements into their slogans to build power. Their expansion, discriminatory campaigns, and power, including offices taken through elections and strong influence in public policy decisions, increase the risks to which transgender people are exposed. “Anti-rights groups do not want us to start our families, and we already have our families, our identities, and nobody can take that away from us, we have to make them legal. Those who rule our countries breach the law.” Marcela Romero, REDLACTRANS Regional Coordinator. As noted in our previous regional report, hate speech leads to dehumanization and discrimination, which pave the way for other kinds of crimes (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 2015). Moreover, hate speech leads to the perpetuation of prejudices about transgender people, heightens their vulnerability and stimulates unequal conditions with respect to governments and other sectors.
4.2. State of affairs and human rights violations against transgender rights This section introduces an analysis on the state of affairs of transgender persons in Latin America and the Caribbean focused on the human rights violations documented by CeDoSTALC in 2019. As already mentioned, it is a snapshot of trans people status across the region; that is, in the absence of resources and support from governments to generate official statistics, civil society transgender organizations created observatories or documentation centers, such as the CeDoSTALC, to collect accurate information based on the accounts of victims. Marcela Romero, REDLACTRANS Regional Coordinator, stated: “We need to prepare indicators to change reality; women and trans people want to leave the darkness; 24
