The year has just started, people are still returning from the beach and everything seems to be moving very slowly in the city of São Paulo. At least, almost everything. Prejudice, apparently, is not resting and has already claimed new victims.
A report of transphobia that was practiced on Saturday (05) at the Center 04 shopping mall, in São Paulo, has been circulating on Facebook since the first Sunday of the year (3). The story is not very different from what we are used to hearing: a group of four transgender friends were in the women's bathroom when they were approached by the establishment's security team, who forced them to leave.
For a change, male security guards were called in to deal with female transsexuals. I mean, men entered the bathroom to get other men out of the bathroom. Which is reminiscent of that criticism that "waging war for peace is the same as having sex for virginity". What's the point of that? Fuck logic.
What the security guards probably didn't expect was that the four friends refused to leave the women's bathroom. After all, they are women – regardless of whether they were born that way or not.
Once again, the security team insisted that they leave, this time with female security guards. The girls explained how it wouldn't make sense for them to use the men's bathroom and, only after using the women's bathroom, they left to find themselves in a hallway, amazingly, with at least six security guards at the door of the place.
Aline Freitas, one of the victims and author of the complaint on Facebook, says she stopped, put her hand on her waist and asked the obvious: "But what's that for?" The security guards' response, again not original, was a series of teasing and laughter. The year may be new, but the challenges for the LGBT community are old. It is impossible to forget the same embarrassment that cartoonist Laerte passed in January 2012.
Luckily, the embarrassment that the four friends suffered was not in vain. They themselves have already scheduled a protest for 13pm this Saturday, on the 11th, at the location of the attack (Center 3 itself) – that shopping mall full of colorful people on Paulista, near the corner of Rua Augusta.
Contacting the Center 3 shopping center was informed that the case is being analyzed. The responsible administration stated that a statement on the matter will be sent soon.
For the four friends, there is admiration for the (new) columnist who writes here. Beating your chest and demanding respect is nothing new, but it seems that the stance was forgotten after the protests in June, to the point of surprising people with the courage of those who fight for their rights.
And speaking of rights, the LGBT community may have won many of them in 2013 with the CNJ's decision to regulate gay marriage through Resolution 175, but it [the LGBT community] still suffers a lot (as in the case of Aline) to be able to give the luxury of resignation.
And what's more: it's not like we don't have any legal support. Despite the lack of a law that explicitly says that transvestites and transsexuals can use the bathroom that has to do with their gender identity, there is no law that prohibits them.
There are those who understand that we can even use state law 10.948/2001 of São Paulo in our favor, since its first article prohibits "practicing any type of violent, embarrassing, intimidating or vexatious action, of a moral, ethical, philosophical or psychological nature ".
In any case, Aline's sad episode shows us that, despite the old challenges, there is some hope in the air: none of the four transsexuals admitted to being disrespected by the security guards, to the point that the LGBT community is already rehearsing a reaction commensurate with the attack suffered.
In the end, it may even be that Center 3 and its security guards will not be punished by the authorities, but there remains a very positive feeling that we are not used to: that we are not alone, because people are by our side in this fight. , whether they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite, transsexual or not.
* Thales Coimbra is a specialist in LGBT law; graduated and master's degree in philosophy of law from the Faculty of Law of USP, where he studies homophobic hate speech; founder and coordinator of Geds – Study Group on Law and Sexuality. www.rosancoimbra.com.br/direitolgbt
