Labor discrimination and trans people in Jalisco: obstacles to accessing a dignified life
En Jalisco, modificar parte de tu documentación para que se respete tu identidad de género se convirtió en una realidad para la comunidad trans desde el 2018; sin embargo, esto está lejos de traducirse en una mejora en su vida laboral, ya que la discriminación y las escasas oportunidades para obtener mejores empleos son obstáculos que aún enfrentan las personas trans en su lucha por acceder a un trabajo digno en el que se respete su identidad.
By Aitana Rodríguez, Miguel Vidal, Mariana Herrera and Elizabeth Magaña
This anonymous testimony of a victim of discrimination was published in visible, which offers a digital platform for people from the LGBTTTIQ+ community to safely submit complaints for violations of their human rights.
The trans community is made up of transvestites, transgender and transsexuals, identities whose common denominator is that the sex assigned to birth does not match their gender identity.Being trans can include, or not, a process of bodily or hormonal modifications.Unfortunately, in Mexico belong to this community is almost a sentence to be a victim of structural discrimination.
This is mainly due to the demands of a heteronormative society, as well as the lack of legal recognition, reasons why access is restricted not only to their rights and to cover their basic needs such as education, health or employment but alsoto his own identity, undermining his quality of life and well -being as part of society.
Ricardo Coyoatzin Torres in Human Rights of Trans Persons: In search of identity and social justice (2019) expresses that:
This statement is a reality that is reflected in the data, since 60% of LGBTTTIQ+ people have had difficulty getting work due to their sexual orientation and gender identity, of which 29% corresponds to trans women,The highest percentage among the different populations of sexual diversity, according to the national diagnosis of discrimination towards LGBTI people in Mexico, made in 2018.
In this regard, Izack Zacarías, president of Trans Impulse, civil organization of support for this community in Jalisco, explained that trans women face greater difficulties in getting a job compared to men, due to social and cultural prejudices they facefor not "entering" the demanding stereotypes of femininity imposed, despite undergoing hormonal treatments and changes in name and gender in their documents.It also points out that despite the visibility that has been achieved, the work obstacles faced by trans women, are a consequence of the misinformation of society, religious ideologies and the patriarchal macho system.
To this situation it is added that, approximately 70% of trans women do not have social security, being drifting in situations of illness in addition to not having resources to pay their treatments.
Wendy Cano, an independent activist of Jalisco, clarified that although by the Ministry of Health there are free treatments, due to the time that involves attending a medical appointment or consultation and that it is often necessary to miss your work at work;Therefore, it is difficult to put on the balance, yes, for example, you are a worker with a minimum wage, so you should pay for your own treatment.In relation to this situation, the following transition women testimonies were collected in their transition process:
Regarding this same diagnosis, it is revealed that harassment, harassment and discrimination in work towards trans women is a day -to -day situation accompanied by the lowest salaries.Situation that shows the previous ones is that 25 % of trans women who participated in the survey (being the highest percentage within occupations), was dedicated to sex work.
Read Gil Cárdenas believes that, unfortunately, the Trans community lacks opportunities, so its job offer is very limited, and in many of these cases they resort to prostitution or work that does not require school knowledge.In addition, he shared that when he goes out to the street, he must take care if he goes alone, how he is dressed or even if he is going to Uber, since men take certain freedoms to what he added “I do not know if because of being a womantrans or simply for being a woman ".
Now, when you question Victoria Villalobos about the social prejudices that exist around trans women, he mentions that people believe that they can only be dedicated to prostitution or being stylistic.
On the other hand, the psychiatrist of the Condesa Specialized Clinic (CEC) in Mexico City, Jeremy Cruz Islas, estimated in 2016 that the transgender population in Mexico represented between 0.3 or 0.5 percent;that is, between 360 thousand and 600 thousand trans people.
It should be clarified that there are no specific statistics regarding the trans population in the country, since these have not been updated and in many cases people belonging to this community do not have the legal recognition of self -perceived identity or prefer not to reveal it byFear of rejection or discrimination.
Despite this, the latest published documents about discrimination and employment situation yield the following results:
First, the study entitled Panorama of the Right to Labor for LGBTI populations published in 2014 within the results show that 10% of respondents declare that on occasion their sexual orientation or gender identity and gender identity were dismissed and 31% and 31%He replied that if there is discrimination by chief or work partners.
Following the discrimination suffered at work, the consequences for respondents were diverse, from not wanting to go to work, find in isolation or depression among others, although 10% did not face any problem, 4% came to have suicidal thoughts.
Isak Zacarias, mentioned that within the factors that prevent trans people from obtaining and conserving stable job, it is positioned as first place: mental health (emotional instability, anxiety, depression), which is affected by not being respectfulor by constantly living situations of discrimination inside and outside work, which results in poor performance within the work area or even dropout.For what considers that it is a recurring and high weight factor that is not often talked about.
Second, the National Survey on Discrimination in Mexico (ENADIS) carried out in 2017 and of which an update has not been made, it is observed within its results that 72% of the trans population believes that their rights are little respected or any.Mexican society shows greater rejection of living in the private sphere with trans people: trans women in 33% and in trans men in 41%.
Taking into account the National Survey on Discrimination by Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (Endosig) carried out in the country in 2018, the following information was obtained from the population surveyed:
To conclude these results, AVEM Mexico, a non -profit collective who works to defend the human rights of the LGBT+community, reported that:
Nobody wants to report
When investigating a request for information to the State Prosecutor's Office regarding the complaints imposed for discrimination reasons from 2019 to 2021 the resolution was:
In the case of the State Human Rights Commission, when requesting information regarding the complaints imposed for reasons of labor discrimination, the response was “the search in the complaint system was carried out and no complaint was found under the concept required during the periodmentioned".
In the report entitled Rights of the LBGTI people in the public policy carried out by the National Institute of Social Development (INDESOL) from 2015 to 2017 analyzing different surveys conducted in the country, they declare that:
Of 86 cases, despite going to the corresponding instances, the authorities have done nothing;While, in 33 cases, those affected indicate that the authorities blamed them for being LGBTI, and in 31 they suggested not to denounce, in addition, 79 cases report having been insulted by public servants;38 mention that they were suggested to hide their sexual identity to receive attention, and in 24 cases they were prevented access to a service or right.
Izack Zacarías, lawyer and defender of the rights of trans people, he mentioned:
In addition, he pointed out that discrimination is even given by public servants when trans people who come to denounce the violation of their human rights.
When questioning the respondents regarding the support that certain institutions provide in cases of discrimination, 40% of them know maso or less the support provided by the CNDH/CDH and with respect to Conapred/Creded, and 51% do not know the support it offers.
Complementary to the above, there is visible data, the first online platform that allows reporting violence and discrimination incidents committed towards LGBTQ+ people in Mexico.The platform is administered by Amicus DH, to.C., Organization of Mexican Civil Society dedicated to the defense and promotion of the rights of LGBTI people since 2015 and established in Guanajuato, Mexico, since the information related to LGBTQ+ people in Mexico almost does not exist and without it, it is notpossible to generate effective laws or policies that improve current reality.
Collecting this information allows to make visible the great challenges facing LGBTQ+ people in our country.The reports in visible can be madeThe digital information of who makes the report.
Jalisco's sexual diversity address, works together with Amicus, also reporting on the platform the discrimination cases of those people who request support them.
The information generated by this platform is in open data format and is free access for anyone who wishes to consult it.The number of reports made in the last three years (2019 to 2021), only in Jalisco, was 108 in total, of which 39 reported situations of violence and discrimination against trans people, of these, 31 reports correspond to trans women.
The most recurring type of discrimination in these 39 cases was "impediment of entry, denial of services or rights" although also verbal aggressions either personally or in social networks.In the case of work violence, four reports were made by trans women, for being "sanctioned or unjustifiably farewells" or "not to be hired for their orientation and/or identity".
Education, health and employment are some of the human rights backed by the constitution of our country that allow ensuring the possibilities of access to a dignified life to all people who are within their territory, regardless of their race, conditionsocial, gender or sexual preference.For trans people in Mexico and specifically in the state of Jalisco, these rights are far from being a reality.
AVEM Mexico added that:
Andrés Treviño Luna, Director of Sexual Diversity of Jalisco of the Ministry of Substantive Equality between men and women, said that "the Government is not inclusive only for having a direction of sexual diversity", the government will be inclusive when other dependencies in their daily actionsrecognize the inequality gaps that exist by gender identity and take actions to reverse it.
Unrecognized identities
There are multiple the difficulties that trans people are going through throughout their lives, but one of the main problems they face is given when carrying out their process of identity change in their documents as a birth certificate, official identifications,bank accounts, credit history, academic titles, affiliation to health services among others.This results in the obstruction of its integral development.
Wendy Cano adds that the situation of labor discrimination against trans people is very different from comparison from six years ago, since it was a very difficult situation for trans people to get a job because many times vacancies specified the required genre, thus generating a situation of disagreement between the aspects of gender expression with the official documentation:
She affirms that these types of situations create stigmatization on why a person should be dedicated to limiting work such as styling, prostitution, nightlife or shows.These are stigmas derived from that, years ago there were poor job opportunities.
However, he also states that this has changed due to the release and protests of trans people who have marked a national and state advance, although not compared to the CDMX.To this he added that in Jalisco there is already the process of changing identity that is very simple and also makes the process of looking for a job more comfortable, the Large Business Stock Exchange such as Pepsi and Colgate has even increased in which they also provide due training due training to the staff.
He also told us about his transition process that began to interfere with his studies in sixth semester of high school, a situation he decided to process the correction of name and gender in his legal documents.In this process - which, by the way, began just over 14 years ago - realized that they were late and expensive procedures as well as a difficult task to find a lawyer who understood his situation, not being able to conclude this legal process within Guadalajara decidedGo to the CDMX where they began to do this procedure, with support he achieved their mission in a period of 6 to 8 months.
However, he did not have that after changing his name and gender he would cause difficulties in other institutions such as IMSS and a bank, this due to the ignorance of the procedures that, previously, Wendy had made.Consequently, he lost his credit history, so he began to document his process on social networks to share it to people from the community with their same situation.
Wendy took a year trying to change his data in Social Security, until he finally managed to be the person 0001 in the state of Jalisco in achieving this procedure.
Just as Wendy, many trans people in the state are going through difficulties in carrying out these procedures so that their identity is recognized, but the lack of integral protocols in the different organizations return this more complicated task.
To carry out this investigation, information was requested via transparency to the offices of the Civil Registry of the 125 municipalities of Jalisco, to know how many people had carried out a process of recognition of self -perceived identity from 2019 to 2021.
So far, there are the responses of 44 municipalities, of which three declared that it was the competence of the Civil Registry of the State to respond to our request, and 20 more reported not having done any procedure.In the remaining 21 municipalities, at least a process of identity recognition was carried out.
The municipalities that reported a greater number of procedures were those belonging to the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara: Guadalajara (199 procedures), El Salto (125), Tlajomulco de Zúñiga (94), Zapopan (92), San Pedro Tlaquepaque (15) and Tonalá(10).
The total number of people who requested the change of identity in their birth certificate was 567 in the 44 municipalities whose responses were taken into account for this count;Of these, only 563 people are have specific data, so it is known that more than 61% were trans women, only 12% of those who carried out the procedure were minors and about 67% of the people who correctedHis minutes did not belong to the municipality where they carried out their procedure.
In addition, information was requested from different educational institutions of the state of the upper and upper middle level, to know how many people had made their change in academic documents in the 2019 to 2021 period.In Cecyte Jalisco three procedures were carried out;In Conalep Jalisco there were five and in Cobaej, there were no procedures.
On the other hand, the Strategic General Coordination of Social Development through its Office of School Control of Higher Education and Higher Education Teaching registered six procedures in that period and the Undersecretariat of Higher Education belonging to the Coordination of Economic Growth and Development reported fourformalities.
On the other hand, when requesting information about the University of Guadalajara his response was that: "The General Coordination of School Control does not carry out a registration of the requested procedures".
The scars tell stories
Sexual harassment, identity questions, the jokes of bad taste, the complexes and prejudices of the classmates within the jobs are a fairly heavy burden, faced by the people of the trans community currently.
An example of this is Angie Hermosillo, a trans girl who has been dedicated to styling for 6 years, because she did not continue her studies for issues of her transition, which by social complexthat in educational institutions prevented and limited the expression of his identity quite.
Within his work as a stylist, he says that he suffered intense harassment from his clients men during his workday.In addition, he comments that society has a bad concept of the trans community, since its job options are reduced to the same styling, give shows and mainly to prostitution.
On the other hand, Ethan Maldonado, a third semester student of the Public Accounting career at the University of Guadalajara, has suffered discrimination due to their appearance, because in most of the works they ask for women with “good presentation” demanding makeup or wear clothing set.
Not to mention the constant questions regarding their ability to carry out some activities, in addition, when they requested indistinct sexes invalidated their identity with the question "What are you?".In high school they did not let him cut his hair or use the men's uniform, because the prefect said "You are a woman and you must wear a skirt, socks and shoes".
And within this environment, there is also those who go out to raise their voice for all, clear example is Wendy Cano.He told us about the academic situation of most trans people, because much decides to desert the educational system for the discomfort of being named by their Dead Name and not being recognized by the genre with which they identify.
For his part Victoria, he shares in a very open way the multiple occasions where a job offer was denied for his identity: “I remember another where they requested personnel as a warehouse submEfe, and I had 3 year old experience, everything that entails and decided Apply.Upon arrival they denied me the opportunity because they occupied men, they told me with a burlesque touch ”.
At the beginning of her transition, she used acrylic nails because she liked, within her job a recruiter told her that she gave a bad image to the company and began to invalidate her identity.In his current work, he has been a victim of discrimination when he was appointed in male, insistently, with the desire to bother.
In the case of Jessica, his story does not end up sexual harasscompanies, which he went to a job offer;She being a few with a degree for the position.
And what can we do?
Trans impulse, AVEM Mexico, Adil and Union diverse are some of the non -profit organizations, which aims to protect and defend the human rights of the LGBT+community, as well as create social events to make visible the community and that they aresafe space for the same.
These actions are carried out in order to strengthen the trans population through the dissemination of reliable, objective and professional information that helps in accompanying their transition processes, in addition to making visible the issue within the State.
Trans impulse is a non -governmental organization that acts through five programs: Ministry, Medical Services, Legal Services, Labor Linking and Safe Spaces.The Ministry is the first contact, where the person interested from three basic principles is informed: the non -pathologizing approach, respect for human rights (medical care, legal recognition, labor inclusion and education) and informed consent;The above to carry out its transition in an integral way, that is, personal, social and legal.
After the orientation, they are channeled to the different services, which have been driven by the community itself through medical networks, lawyers, psychologists, informed and sensitized.Part of the accompaniment is also to link them to the corresponding instances in case of violence or discrimination when carrying out their transition process or wanting to access their rights.
On the other hand, in the AVEM Mexico group they work more with the ideological and social aspects through public and free social events, which have the main objective of making visible the LGBT+community, as well as fighting ignorance and prejudices that exist in relationWith these issues, with informative, artistic and cultural activities.However, it is a group always willing to offer support to the people of the community who need it, whether they have lived some violation of their human rights or that need help in any personal aspect.
Likewise, Unión diverse is a civil society organization Lesbo, BI, feminist trans -consisting of young women, which emerged in 2014 with the purpose of fighting in favor of human rights.They have an interdisciplinary group that has specialized in work with the lesbian population, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, queer and with gender violence, since then they have pledged to carry out actions to achieve equality, giving accompanimentto victims of violence and discrimination.
During this investigation we gave ourselves the task of approaching these associations that work, day by day, for enforcing the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community and seeking justice in the process, the experts who head these associations explain that there are already many actions forpart of the SAT and the Government to compensate for companies that carry out actions in favor of the inclusion of sexual diversity.
These associations share the idea that training personnel, especially public servants and implement and enforce the protocols that already exist, as well as disseminate this issue not only to combat discrimination but also a support for the LGBTIQ+ community thatIt helps them to know what it has to do in case of being discriminated, to whom to go and most importantly, know that they are not alone.
In addition, they propose as a campaign against labor discrimination due to sexual orientation or gender identity: to promote respect and empower the trans community through information about their rights and laws that support them for better integration into public spaces.
In addition, in the Directorate of Sexual Diversity of the Secretariat of Substantive Equality between men and women there is a mechanism for attention to victims, with three lawyers who provide attention and accompaniment to victims of discrimination, in what they call it, route attention-Avan people from the LGBT community, because there is an access barrier, since the victims do not want to denounce the violence they have suffered.
What they are looking for is that people have their first contact with the government in a safe and trustworthy space.They are not an instance with the power to resolve, but observe the rest of the dependencies of the Jalisco government that do have the power.And so they can be behind each case until it has a resolution.
One of its main tasks is to provide training and awareness of government agencies through different programs such as: attention and monitoring of hate crimes, training to the Civil Registry on administrative process and identity recognition procedures, another directed towards planning and planning areasgenerally awareness and inclusion programs.
So far this administration have trained more than 3,500 public officials.They collaborate with 60 civil society organizations throughout the State and have direct contact with 40 of them and work hand in hand with trans impulse.
His main obstacle has been machismo, due to the traditional ways of doing politics."Breaking that work inertia and incorporating this new perspective has been the challenge," said Andrés Treviño, head of the Directorate of Sexual Diversity.
The future objectives of this dependency are to institutionalize the action or policies of inclusion, create guides, manuals, mechanisms and protocols to be a natural part of an administration and leave the basis for the government to work and include people of diversitysexual.
In addition to its obligation to contribute to the progress in the recognition of identity of trans people, and to continue normalizing in practice the access to the rights of people of sexual diversity and including childhoods and trans adolescences in the school period.
In spite of the actions carried out by the Government and the aforementioned associations, the work of eradicating labor discrimination towards the people of the trans community, as well as the stigmas of oppression is everyone's task, starting to inform us to stop questioning the identities ofGender manifested with erroneously typical questions or comments about their privacy, as well as practicing the necessary empathy and respect for any human relationship, it is the first step.
***
This report was prepared by students of the Bachelor of Public Communication of the University of Guadalajara in the framework of the Journalistic Research subject by Darwin Franco.