Argentina, gender self-id and risk to women

[Foilball]

I thought this was an interesting article. 10 years ago Argentina passed the world's first law allowing trans people to change legal gender on demand. There were/are concerns that this would put women at risk.

Officials say data shows no rise in violence against women.

"We haven't had situations of violence from our travesti and trans sisters," said Candelaria Botto of Ecofeminita, one of the country's most prominent feminist groups. Other feminist groups FEIM, ELA and Colectiva La Revuelta agreed.

Greta Pena, a senior policy officer at Argentina's equality ministry, said there was no evidence of any rise in violence against non-trans women since the law was passed.

The article also says that one trans woman (of 12,655 who changed their legal gender) was convicted of sexual abuse and cites 2 instances (over a 10 year period) of men 'abusing the loophole' to go to women's prisons.

www.openlynews.com/i/?id=21757767-4909-4844-922f-41903ff042f8

Obviously there are differences between Argentina and the UK. The differences between life expectancy for trans people here Vs argentina seem stark, with those in Argentina sadly dying much earlier and having less access to employment.

I'd be interested to hear thoughts - whether people find this reassuring, or not relevant at all.

When you talked about changing gender "on demand" did you mean, sb (anyone) waking up and going "oh, I'm going to become a woman today just because I feel like it?". I have to say, if that's what you meant -otherwise sb please correct me and I'll delete- I for one wouldn't feel reassured at all. How many pervs out there wouldn't jump on the chance to just became a woman so they could end up in a jail full of females (thinking Candyland! It's Christmas!). And there are jails where female inmates are allowed to keep the children with them for a while, I can't even imagine a pedophile showing up (not that there aren't female pedophiles because there are).
In Portugal you can change "gender" but at the end of the transitioning process- which is a long one, entails a lot of therapy and the whole process takes place under the supervision of a team of doctors (all with a different expertise). I'm not aware of anyone being able to change gender just because. Then again, this is the land where red tape was invented... Even changing one's name is a hassle, let alone changing gender.
Over here -and I'm going with what I read in the paper or watch on tv- transgenders are usually the victim not the perpretators.
This is a deeply conservative/religious country and a lot of people find it difficult to even be able to express themselves freely and tell the world they're gay. Heck my mom has a neighbour of almost 30 years who's gay (I won't get into how I know, that's irrelevant) and he sleeps on the couch, the wife's super unhappy yet they won't get a divorce. She gets up at 5am to argue with him in the living room so the kids won't hear them.
There's a long way to go here, regarding the rights of all LGBTQ people, let alone change gender on demand. Though, I have to add, I knew two (2!) women who were 100% lesbians in London -that sounds a bit crass but I'm just stating a fact (apologies to anyone offended)- who are now married to men. I do wonder whether they're happy or whether they've bowed down to the parents which I know was an issue for one of them.

Argentina's self-id policy got a very passing mention in the Scottish Parliament's Equalities, Rights and Civil Justice Committee hearing on Tuesday. No one tried to make claims about the success or otherwise of the outcome, though.

It doesn’t seem especially positive when 70% are sex workers, with an average life expectancy of 32.

This is not directly about the topic of this thread, but it is very much about it in the sense that people extremely frequently misuse statistics in this debate and that many of the most often quoted statistics are, in fact, false, or at least applied to a group of people they don't apply to.

If you have ever studied how life expectancy figures are created, you will immediately spot that the assumed life expectancy of 32 for trans women in Argentina should ring all your alarm bells (as a value this low for some demographic group is almost always caused by incredibly high infant and child mortality rates).

I have emailed the source given here to get the link to that 2017 survey in Buenos Aires, to see how they could calculate that figure.

My preliminary hunch is that this is just referring to a slightly different survey of the Americas which lists a finding that when trans women are murdered in South Africa, they are murdered at young ages. (scroll down to page 5 which states that 80% of those trans women who were murdered were under 35).

I may be wrong about this, but I suspect that the statement:
"Of murdered trans women eighty percent were young."
has been misunderstood as this statement:
"Eighty percent of young trans women are murdered."

The two are not the same. Most trans women are not murdered, and the report I link to gives an overall number of homicides for the LGBT group in that survey as 594.

Assuming the two pieces of data the report discusses come from the same study.

If I find that the life expectancy figure the article quotes is actually correct, I will let you know.

I think this reply says it all

My friend lives in Argentina. It is very male dominated. They don't even have equal pay laws so she was (legally) paid less than the men doing the same job!

It's very telling that the most traditional and religious countries (Iran, Malta, Argentina, Ireland) with appalling records on women's rights are falling over themselves to introduce self ID.

@nepeta

bancos.salud.gob.ar/sites/default/files/2020-10/guia-salud-personas-trans-travestis-nobinarias.pdf

Page 46 -
The estimated average lifespan of trans women and transvestites is 35-40 years old (4) well below life expectancy of the general population, which in Argentina is 77 years (5)
.
The data collected by The Revolution of the Butterflies in CABA indicate that trans women and transvestites die, in average, 32 years old, product of the systematic and structural violence and social, political and economic exclusion. of 192 trans women and transvestites who died between 2011 and 2016,
83% were under 40 years old at the time of their death.

According to this study, the leading cause of death is HIV or associated diseases, such as tuberculosis, pneumonia or pneumonia (64%) and the second cause is homicides (15%). Other causes mentioned are: cirrhosis, overdose, problems derived from silicone injections and suicide.

Ref (4) is rather vague...
This is listed as one of the sources but I cannot see it anywhere

www.huesped.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/OSI-informe-FINAL.pdf

Thanks for the links.

Thank you.

I couldn't have put it better.

I'm also not sure that I believe the reports from Argentina - or perhaps that abuse of women was so appalling to begin with that the trans ID was just another drop in a vast ocean of oppression. Or maybe they are just being silenced. Or murdered. Or ignored.

I've said it in a previous post:

We need to make "vagina toilets" and "penis toilets" 🤷🏻‍♀️ regardless of what people look like! Same goes for changing rooms, prisons and shelters

I don’t believe the processing of the stats is bullet proof. It’s a male dominated country, the report talks solely of violence and as we know women often don’t report violent crimes

Agree @grey12

And they need to be proper vaginas/penises - not faux vaginas cobbled together out of bits of bowel or inverted penises, or faux penises constructed out of forearm and thigh flesh.

Use the facilities for the SEX you were born.

Bugger your gender!

@IamAporcupine , thank you very much for those references. Much appreciated. I need to study them.

Quite. Malta is held up as some sort of shining example of human rights excellence by self id zealots. Malta, where abortion is illegal in all circumstances.

Yup, we need a campaign to 1) press all relevant facility providers to make toilets etc. single sex; 2) to get providers to label doors to those facilities to spell out very clearly who can enter; and 3) to get the providers to train their staff to know about and uphold the policy.

[Ideally, 4) to amend the Equality Act to make single-sex spaces the default and for any deviation from that to have to be justified as "a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim" - well, I can dream.]

Officials say data shows no rise in violence against women. …said there was no evidence of any rise in violence against non-trans women since the law was passed.

but surely your statement means that transgender people are behaving exactly the same as they did before transition? So behaving at the same rates as their sex? If transwomen had the same rates of crime against women as women, then violence against women would go down.

However, it’s impossible to work out what is going on, as other people have said, until data can be collected properly. And how many women have to be assaulted to negate transwomen’s discomfort?

I get stuck in my search due to language problems. I find several web pages about the Revolution of the Butterflies, and as far as I can tell, they refer to the Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires as the source of the data. Further attempts to get anywhere has me going round in circles where the final summary of results are given, but no reference to the actual study.

I have a friend who can help me with the language later so hope lives eternal.

Tbh I don't think I mind faux ones 🤷🏻‍♀️ (not talking about shelters)

My biggest concern is getting raped so I don't think I'll be raped by a faux vagina

But maybe I'm mistaken

But maybe I'm mistaken

It doesn't matter whether you are mistaken or not. We don't get to give away rights on behalf of other women because individual women don't care about them.

There are many women who do care about sex-based rights, their protected characteristic as women of faith who may have substantial religious and cultural restrictions on being present with a member of the other sex class, or the social understanding that, for example, single sex spaces women's respect right to dignity and privacy.

As an example of committees disregarding the perspective and input of women of faith, page 1 of this thread has an outline of this and some useful links.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4561351-scottish-greens-staffer-accuses-msp-of-weaponising-religion-against-transgender-people

Greta Pena, a senior policy officer at Argentina's equality ministry, said there was no evidence of any rise in violence against non-trans women since the law was passed.

I mean - "it's been 10 years, and women are still killed at the same rate, so letting anyone be a woman is fine" isn't exactly the flex I'd go for...

Here are some perspectives from TRAs of various countries including Argentina. There is mixing up of gender and sex, and a call for official documents to mention neither.
privacyinternational.org/long-read/4372/my-id-my-identity-impact-id-systems-transgender-people-argentina-france-and

Some of the information about Argentina in previous posts is misleading.
yes, abortion was only legalised in 2020, but only three countries in all of Latin America legalised abortion before Argentina (Cuba, Guyana and Uruguay) so it is not an outlier in its continent.
The literacy rate in Argentina is 99% and does not differ significantly, if at all, between men and women.
Argentina has had two female presidents and currently has a female Vice President (who is a former President) — not necessarily an indicator of women’s rights but suggests it is not as “macho” as some posters seem to think.
(I have worked in Argentina and have friends and distant relatives there so have some knowledge of the country — both faults and virtues).

I'm working on the premise that we don't give an any more - ever - because if we do, they'll find a way to turn it into mile.

So - facilities for biological sex only, thank you very much.