Without a doubt, security can be a tricky topic. We are raised under the assumption we are all born free and equal, does this apply to our access to security? In theory, it should be available to everyone no matter any distinction, however, most of the time this is not the case. Pretty often minorities get targeted and treated as outsiders for being different. Repeatedly within history, one of those groups are people with different sexual orientations and gender identities than the ones which are deemed as ‘normal’. Currently, 70 countries in the world have laws that criminalize people due to their sexual orientation; 11 out of those consider the death penalty as a consequence and 15 have prohibitions regarding transgender people.
At present, Mexico finds itself in a complex place when it comes to guaranteeing security to members of the LGBTQIA+ community. On one side, within Latin America, Mexico is considered as one of the countries with the most legal written guarantees of protection, but, on the other hand, life conditions of LGBTQIA+ people do not reflect such guarantees on true actions. Likewise, such written legal guarantees of protection are not part of the National Plan of the government. Thus, they keep being swept away by each political party as they choose to do so.
From 2015 till 2019, at least 442 people part of the LGBTQIA+ community have been victims of homicidal violence. So far in 2022, there have been reported 43 murders and 11 disappearances. In addition, harassment and assault have become part of the daily basis of people who do not fit into the norm. From 2016 to 2021, 369 cases of hate crime were documented in the country. The places of the Republic in which most cases reported have happened are Veracruz, Mexico City, Michoacan, Nuevo Leon, Guerrero, Chihuahua, Jalisco, and Baja California. Along with, transfeminicides are another alarming situation of Mexico, which is not addressed enough and is usually under reported. These aggressions towards transgender women are rising more and more: in the last 10 years, 283 cases were documented. Nevertheless, it is important to clarify that 17 of the 32 states in the country do not have records of hate crimes or do not recognize transfeminicides as such. Therefore, they do not have a gender perspective at the time of recording the murders and carrying out the investigations. Hence, many more murders, hate crimes, transfeminicides and attacks than the ones in the official numbers have happened.
Mexico as a country is not even close to possessing the adequate responding mechanisms to all this insecurity and violence. Protocols are needed with urgency so better reports, investigations and crime prevention can be done. Certainly, not only that is needed, but education is also as crucial towards creating a more inclusive society. Phobia towards people with different sexual orientations and gender identities has been around for a long time. It is not just a theme of dignity and human rights, sadly it is embedded within Mexican values and traditions. Mexican culture regularly enhances, normalizes, and justifies bigotry, consequently creating stereotypes and toxic attitudes that feed this vicious circle of violence nonstop. In like manner, if there is no work put towards changing people’s mentality, protocols will continue to be useless, since it is very common to find situations were hate crimes and transfeminicides go unpunished because police forces and government persecutors are as bigoted as the offenders.
All these topics remain a tabu for the Mexican society. When security is talked about minorities should always be taken into consideration, especially when taking decisions. Nonetheless, to realize it people need to strip away from their judgement, bigotry, and misogyny, which is no easy task; entire communities have been founded on these attitudes. Despite, placing efforts towards stopping these cycles of violence and aggressions will cause more benefits to the country than trying to repress people from the LGBTQIA+ community does.
