Gender Violence at the U.S.–Mexico Border: Media Representation and Public Response

1. Violence and Transvestite/Transgender Sex Workers in Tijuana

Introduction to Chapter 1 Although femicides in Ciudad Juárez, the largest city in the northern state of Chihuahua, have called the attention of the international press, intellectuals, activists, and society in general, we cannot discuss genderbased violence without considering homophobia, which has become one of the most tolerated human rights violations in Mexican society. Despite the fact that the number of crimes reported against lesbians, homosexuals , and transgenders is significantly lower than the recent number of femicides, this type of hate crime is often left unreported or may even be instigated by authority figures and public discourses. Widespread intolerance against sexual diversity combined with internalized homophobia in the homosexual population make this topic of fundamental interest to the discussion of gender-related violence. Based on a series of interviews conducted with transvestites, this chapter documents the different forms of violence that the transgender condition implies in Tijuana. By discussing this issue, the authors offer valuable insights regarding the victim’s self-construction as an undervalued subject and the predominance of patriarchal ideology over human rights in the social consciousness and in public institutions. Two main sources of violence are discussed. The first is that which takes place between transvestites and their customers, including rape, kidnapping, and sudden aggression after sexual intercourse (this is generally a result of a client discovering the transvestite is not a woman). The second category of violence is inflicted by the authorities: from the different kinds of police extortion to the implementation of discriminatory city regulations. Authorities, clients, and even the homosexual population violate human rights of transvestites, making this one of the most extreme forms of gender violence. In fact, one of the main questions this chapter addresses is how the interviewees conceive their way of life as “normal” even when it is not unusual that they suffer rape, extortion, and kidnapping. chapter 1 Violence and Transvestite/Transgender Sex Workers in Tijuana debra a. castillo, maría gudelia rangel gómez, and armando rosas solís Although the tragic murders of young women in Ciudad Juárez have become the most internationally recognized example of gender-related violence along the Mexico–U.S. border, and rightly are the main focus of this book, it would be a gross oversimplification to presume that gender-based violence is limited to this single city and to these specific women. This chapter examines another form of gender/sexuality-based violence, through an empirically based study of the effects of quotidian violence on the lives of trans (transvestite/transgender) people in another border city, Tijuana. Transvestite shows in Tijuana have formed an important part of the panorama available to sex clients who flood the city. In fact, many people understand transvestite sex work as limited to the presumed glamour of drag shows. In recent years, however, there has been an increasing recognition that the performance environment alone cannot absorb the growing number of sex workers who have begun to move from their respective establishments to massage parlors and into the streets and public parks. There are more of them (perhaps two hundred to three hundred, although no census has yet been conducted), and they are currently more visible than ever. Violence against this population is also migrating into the streets and into the public eye. Yet, except for scattered reports in human rights–­ oriented publications, there has been little recognition of this serious problem, and almost no understanding of the world in which these individuals live. The Place of Transvestites In a study for the World Policy Institute, the scholar Andrew Reding (Sexual Orientation, 3) has noted that in general “transvestite sex workers 16 Castillo, Rangel Gómez, and Rosas Solís bear the brunt of societal hostility and face a very elevated risk of violence and murder across most of Latin America.” Nevertheless, he surprisingly finds little reported major violence against transvestites in Mexico. In fact, Reding has argued the opposite. Since 2000, “repression by federal, state, and municipal authorities is now the exception rather than the rule,” although he is quick to add that “the social environment in most of Mexico remains repressive and often dangerous” (Reding, Mexico: Update, 1). In support of this rather unexpected finding, Reding cites Víctor Clark Alfaro, the director of Tijuana’s Binational Center for Human Rights. Clark Alfaro notes that although transvestites in the city have complained about frequent extortion and harassment by police, Tijuana is a cosmopolitan...