Questioning Transphobia

I couldn’t find much in English. Rosa Pazos was a Spanish woman.

This article is in English:

Seville, Spain: Anarchist Rosa Pazos has been murdered

Thursday, July 24 2008 @ 06:19 PM CDT
Contributed by: Admin
Views: 321

On the eleventh of July Rosa Pazos, Sevillian anarchist and transexual activist, died after being stabbed. The Local Federation of Unions of the CNT-AIT in Seville and her comrades want to express what follows: —- Rosa always said she would be murdered one day, but nobody took her seriously. Mournfully, facts have finally shown her to be right: we know from mass media that she was found dead at home by firemen, on the eleventh of July, and only afterwards, in the autopsy practised in the Anathomic-Forensic Institute, was revealed that the cause of her death had been a stabbing on her thorax. Due to this, a prosecution has begun and secret summary has been decreed.

Anarchist Rosa Pazos has been murdered

On the eleventh of July Rosa Pazos, Sevillian anarchist and transexual activist,
died after being stabbed. The Local Federation of Unions of the CNT-AIT in
Seville and her comrades want to express what follows: —- Rosa always said she
would be murdered one day, but nobody took her seriously. Mournfully, facts have
finally shown her to be right: we know from mass media that she was found dead
at home by firemen, on the eleventh of July, and only afterwards, in the autopsy
practised in the Anathomic-Forensic Institute, was revealed that the cause of
her death had been a stabbing on her thorax. Due to this, a prosecution has
begun and secret summary has been decreed.

Very few people accepted her the way she was throughout her life, not even
her family, and very few paid her attention, but far from unravelling she
always faced society’s reject due to her triple condition of transexual,
anarchist and diseased.

Rosa has been a fighter all her life, she has fought for her right to be
recognized as the woman she was, for her right to a proper medical
treatment, for her right to be socially and professionally accepted, for
her freedom of speech, for her right to intimity, etcetera. A constant and
unequal fight that she has always faced from a libertarian perspective,
which has lead her to denounce systematically institutions and public
powers, whose bureaucracy, as usual, has turned into nothing these rights.

I learned about Rosa from this post on Traningrad:

I read a spanish article on Rosa Pazos, which I found, given the way medias usually treat trans people, quite good, so, despite this is a copyright infringement, I’d like to post a home-made english translation. Since neither spanish nor english are my mother tongues, it is probably not very good, but I hope it is still readable.

The rights Rosa Pazos didn’t enjoy

There are people who without knowing it succeed in changing history. There are times where those people die without having received a minimal acknowledgement. This is the case of Rosa Pazos, the transsexual activist from Sevilla who was found dead in her housing, an event whose causes are under investigation. She was a transsexual woman, anarchist woman, suffering and dreaming, who, without knowing it, would help at the other transsexual people.

“In february of 1997 appeared a transsexual people who was called Rosa and was filing a complaint because the Servicio Andaluz de Salud (Andaluz Service of Health), SAS, was denying her medical assistance for feminization…” This is how starts an informal memo of 19 pages redacted by the attached of the Defensor del Pueblo Andaluz (DPA) [a Defensor del Pueblo is, if I understand well, an official who is in charge to defend citizens against abuses which can be commited by officials from a state], José Chamizo, in 1998, on the case on Rosa, in which was also reflected the reality of transsexuality, at a medical, social and judicial level. As a conclusion, it was recommended that the SAS would take the costs of the transsexualising treatment in charge.

And this was how one year later, the 11 of february of 1999, the Andaluz Parliament approved a decree making come true this dream, unreachable years before when, in an health center, Rosa was treated of “transvestite”. She transformed her rage and outrage into letters and writings to the Defensor. Far from falling into deaf ears, they were a key so that Andalucia became a pioneer in the domain.

But Rosa, who was 46 when she die, did not only fight for rights affecting her as transsexual. Her comrades from the CNT [Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo - an anarchist trade union] remember that “she was the first to start making banners and to help in everything she could”. Despite her economical problems, since Rosa, as many other transsexual people, was fired after starting her transformation, she always helped the workers’ struggles. Her transsexuality moved her away from her family, according to people of her environment. She was living alone since the death of her mother.

Taunts and agressions

Her physical aspect, with 1.95 meter, red hair and quite marked masculine traits, made her not only the center of all looks, but also the target of taunts and agressions. Blanca, her best friend, explains that in the travel to Malaga so that Rosa submitted to tests in order to have the right to surgery, “two people mocked her and she collapsed”, few hours before some vital tests.

Rosa never obtained reasignement or name change. Her mental problems were an impassable barrier to obtain them. Her psychologist, José Luis Sanchez, was outraged. “Why can’t transsexual people have mental problems ?She always felt as a woman, with or without mental problems”, he said after the death of his patient.

Gatherings in nine cities

In the afternoon of this [28th of July] mondy they were gathering in nine spanish cities in memory of Rosa. In Sevilla the queer collective “Panteras Rosas” organized a gathering of tribute in the place of La Barzola, in Rosa’s neighborhood. The CNT, as other friends and comrades of Rosa, joined this action, which also reclaimed that her murder was clarified.

I can’t find much information about the circumstances of Rosa’s murder, or what investigations are taking place. What stands out to me are the statements that she always knew she’d be murdered, that she was mocked for her appearance, and that she was denied surgery because of mental illness.

Thank you to Elly Rouge for posting about her.