Jade is a trans woman from Guatemala. She has actively participated in awareness-raising to achieve “Acceptance”, making herself visible “can serve to liberate me and tell what I want to a society that believes there is no transphobia. Before this project I had very low self-esteem and it is time for that to change. And I hope that society will become more and more open.
Transgender people in Guatemala face exclusion caused by family, social and institutional transphobia, starting with expulsion from the home and exclusion from the education and health systems. Public health institutions are usually inaccessible or inadequate for trans people. Staff are not trained to deal with sex-gender diversity, so trans people are commonly abused and mistreated by health care providers, and even subjected to forced therapies to “cure” or “treat” their gender identity or sexual orientation. Discrimination leads to the prevalence of sex work as a form of livelihood for transgender women and also fuels social stigma.
