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Walking confidently on stage, Cecilia Gentili steps out into the
limelight while an excited crowd begins clapping for her. Her
fair skin, heels, red dress and gold earrings make her figure
radiate in the bright lights. Her smile permeates through the
room and hints at her positive outlook on life.

"Welcome everyone, to the third annual CRIS Awards!" she said
with a huge grin. "Bienvenidos!"

On a warmer than average night in early November, the
Translatina Network, a transgender advocacy and education group,
honors community efforts made within the transgender Latina
community across the United States. An auditorium inside the
LGBT Center in Lower Manhattan is full as Gentili
enthusiastically emcees the event and embraces the honorees as
they are recognized.

But behind Gentili's beautiful smile are memories of pain and
hardship. She was born and raised in a place nothing like New
York City -- the small city of Gálvez, Argentina, five hours
from Buenos Aires and in the middle of the country's dairy
region.

Gentili herself is a much different person than the child of
Gálvez. She was assigned male at birth and came out as gay at
12. She would later identify as transgender at 18.

"Life there was difficult," Gentili, 43, said. "I always behaved
in a very queer way. Since I was 6 years old, I felt like
something wasn't right in how society saw me. For years I
thought I was crazy."

Gentili, now a transgender health coordinator in Lower
Manhattan, faced verbal and physical abuse while growing up.
Having feminine characteristics and mannerisms made her an
outcast in her community.

"In a small town that is very binary and heteronormative,
somebody that was assigned male at birth and not acting
masculine enough was very different for them," she said. "I was
living in a society that really wasn't ready for someone like
me."

Gentili's Italian and Argentinian Indian family had a difficult
time understanding her identity, and she said her appearance and
feminine traits embarrassed them. Not only was it challenging
for Gentili to enjoy her life and be comfortable in her own
shoes, but gaining the acceptance of her family was nearly
impossible.

"The way I dressed wasn't very well received," Gentili said. "My
mother was kind of open-minded, but my father was in absolute
denial. I could go out with full make-up, and he wouldn't react."

Gentili said her mother attempted to emphasize how much she
loved her but hated the way she behaved. With her father, their
relationship didn't improve. Her brother also had a difficulty
accepting her.

"My brother Claudio was a bit older than me. People would talk
about me and have horrible conversations with him, and they
didn't realize I was his brother. He was very ashamed of being a
sibling to someone like me."

The daily routine for Gentili consisted of being verbally and
physically attacked on the streets, with some of the abuse
coming from the local authorities. During the late 80s and early
90s, when she lived in Argentina, Gentili said transgender women
were especially vulnerable to police harassment, because it was
illegal to wear clothing of the opposite sex.

"One of the laws there prohibited misleading or being someone
that you're not," Gentili said. "That was a crime, and the
police could just arrest you on the street."

In addition to the harassment Gentili received from her
community, someone who she believed genuinely cared for her
sexually abused her as a child. She said the abuse started when
she was 6 years old and lasted until she was 10.

"He was a neighbor," she said. "While he was doing horrible
things, I saw it as validation and as somebody who saw me as the
girl who I was."

Gentili left her small hometown for Rosario, a larger city in
Argentina, to attend college. It was there that she began to
identify as transgender. At 26, however, she decided to move to
the U.S. in search of a better life as an openly trans woman.

"I decided to move to Miami to live with my friend," said
Gentili. "It took me months to save up, and once I bought my
ticket, I took a plane to the U.S. with only $35 in my pocket.
The cab ride alone from the airport was $25."

With no legal status, Gentili said finding a job was nearly
impossible.

"I couldn't get a hair license, because in order to go to
school, you need some sort of I.D., and I didn't have one, and
without a license for hair, I couldn't do what I was doing in
Argentina," she explained. "I realized that it was a big
possibility that I was going to be doing sex work."

Just two weeks after arriving in the U.S., Gentili was arrested
for prostitution.

"When I was put in jail in Miami, I was placed with the male
population," she said. "Looking back on it is really hard, and I
remember telling myself that I was definitely going back to
Argentina when I could."

Gentili said a judge took her passport away, and when it was
finally returned, her three-month window to stay legally in the
U.S. had already passed. She decided to remain in the country
without legal status.

Her next years in the U.S., however, would not be easy ones. She
would find herself battling addiction, engaged in sex work and
spending more time in prison. She even faced a deportation order.

Gentili is one of thousands of transgender Latina women who --
faced with grueling hardships in their native countries -- flee
to the United States for a better life. However, upon arriving
in the U.S., they find life here is not without its hardships.

"Many of us come to the United States thinking that our quality
of life is going to be better, but unfortunately we come to face
another reality," said Bamby Salcedo, president of the
TransLatina Coalition, an advocacy group for trans Latina
immigrants in the United States.

Salcedo is a transgender Latina immigrant from Guadalajara,
Mexico. Like Gentili, she knows first-hand the struggles many
transgender immigrants experience.

"I moved to the United States for the same reasons many trans
people come to this country," Salcedo said. "Running away from
violence, facing persecution in my country, poverty and family
rejection."

Being the second oldest of her siblings, Salcedo's family
initially had customary plans for her, but she knew that if she
fulfilled those obligations she wasn't being true to herself.

"I was supposed to be the man of the house and fill the
traditional roles and expectations," said Salcedo. "But I knew
at a very early age that I was different, but I just didn't know
how to conceptualize it. So my refuge was to turn to drugs."

The expectations were set for Salcedo before she was even born.
Once her father left to live and find work in the United States,
she was expected to take on the regular roles of a male in a
Latino family.

"When I was born, I was the first boy, and I was given my
father's name," she said. "I was supposed to work. I was
expected to be responsible and provide for the family. When my
dad left, I think my mom thought I was going to save her from
her misery."

Salcedo was living two different lives while growing up in
Mexico. She began using drugs by the time she was 8 and was
arrested at 12.

"I had my street friends who I played the role of tough guy
with, but I also had my gay friends," Salcedo said. "The very
first time I dressed up was when I was 12 years old. Of course I
couldn't be myself because of my family, and because of where I
lived."

Seeking out a better life, Salcedo would later seek refuge in
California, where her father resided. However, life in the U.S.
was more difficult than she had hoped. Salcedo said some of her
worst memories while living in the U.S. were in deportation
detainment facilities.

"I had already submitted an application for asylum. I was
changing my name in the process and was already an active figure
in the community when the Immigration and Customs Enforcement
arrived at my house," she said, while describing a 2005 incident.

Salcedo said she was later mistreated and sexually harassed
while in a deportation detainment facility.

"They separated me [from other detainees] on the bus but put me
in a room with about 50 to 70 men while waiting for the
processing," she explained. "There, men were sexually harassing
me, touching me and doing all kinds of stuff."

When she alerted a guard, Salcedo said she was met with
humiliation instead of help. "He told me 'Oh, we don't separate
people like you ... I still remember those exact words."

In 2014, Salcedo co-authored a study, titled TransVisible:
Transgender Latina Immigrants in U.S. Society, which explored
the issues transgender Latina immigrants face in the U.S. as
well as the issues they faced in their native countries.

Of the 101 women surveyed, 84 percent stated "running away from
violence" was a factor in their decision to leave their native
country. Despite the hardships many of them have faced since
arriving in the United States, 99 percent stated they had better
opportunities in the U.S. than in their home country and 88
percent wished to make the U.S. their permanent residence.

Activist groups say Latin America has the highest occurrence of
transgender violence globally. Between 2008 and 2014, 1,356
transgender people were killed in Latin America, according to
Transgender Europe. This number accounts for nearly 80 of the
trans people killed worldwide during this time period. And the
Latin American and Caribbean Network of Trans People found the
current lifespan of a transgender woman living in Latin America
is only 35 years.

In Gentili's native Argentina, for example, three transgender
women were killed in the span of a month in late 2015. One of
the murdered women was prominent LGBT activist Diana Sacayan,
the first trans woman to be fully recognized by Argentina's
government, when in 2012 President Cristina Kirchner gave her a
national identity card with her gender listed as female.

Ironically, Argentina has been one of the more progressive Latin
American countries when it comes to LGBT rights. In 2010, it
became the first country in Latin America to recognize same-sex
marriage, and the country also has relatively progressive
transgender policies.

"I don't think the situation for the trans community is getting
better in Latin America, it's just getting more attention," said
Karla Padrón, a postdoctoral teaching fellow at Bowdoin College.
Padrón co-authored the Transvisible study with Bamby Salcedo
while a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota, Twin
Cities.

"We assume that if there is progression with laws, a more
tolerant society happens, but there is usually backlash and
fear," Padrón added. "Social movements do not translate to
better conditions for trans people. Legal advancements do not
equal better conditions, because transphobia is embedded in
their culture and therefore transphobic violence is normalized."

Padrón said there is very little documentation of transgender
violence in Latin America. She believes this is needed to bring
more awareness to the issue.

"Until violence against trans women is being documented, there
is no way to prove that things are actually getting better."

Javier Corrales, an Amherst College professor who specializes in
LGBT issues in Latin America, believes violence against trans
women is mostly a result of the masculine-dominated culture.

"There is a certain degree of misogyny in Latin America, and the
female gender is viewed as lower than men. So if a man said he
wants to become a woman, that's not good," Corrales said.

Corrales said the animosity and fear toward transgender people
creates a hostile environment that ultimately leads them to want
to flee elsewhere.

"The trans community faces a terrible labor market," Corrales
said. "Not being able to obtain a job leads to unemployment and
living on the streets and to working in the sex industry among
other things."

Despite facing adversity in their native countries and in their
new homeland, Cecilia Gentili and Bamby Salcedo have both made
better lives for themselves in the U.S.

More than a decade ago, when Gentili began working on her
recovery from drug addiction, she also started working on her
immigration status. In 2011, she received asylum, and for the
past several years she has been working for LGBT nonprofits.

Salcedo, who is currently president of the TransLatina
Coalition, and Gentili said they are both committed to helping
advance the rights of transgender people in the U.S. and Latin
America.

"We're going to stand up and we're going to demand action,"
Salcedo said. "We live in a society that continues to
marginalize us. We continue to live in a society that tells us
that we're not worth it. But they are wrong. We are worth it, we
are unique, we are powerful, and we have so much to bring to our
society. We just need our society to understand that our
uniqueness is going to make the difference in our society."

Improve society, kill yourselves.

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/dangers-trans-women-latin- america-u-s-n621151
 

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