COVID-19 Violence and the Re-making of Urban Space Through Solidarity Networks Among Transgender Women in Lima, Peru
Author(s)
Perez-Brumer, AmayaCuba, Ernesto
Castro-Arteaga, Mariangela
Brisson, Julien
Silva-Santisteban, Alfonso
Huerta, Leyla
Editor(s)
Satija, ShivaniPublication date
2024-09-19Subject
GenderCountry
Peru
Metadata
Show full item recordJournal
Gender and DevelopmentDocument type
Journal articleLanguage
EnglishDescription
<html> <head> <title></title> </head> <body> <p>Extreme instances of COVID-19 policy-related violence against transgender (trans) communities in Latin America highlight the imperative to better understand how gender, power, and rights are entwined within public spaces. Peru is a useful vantage point to explore the intersections between gendered power asymmetries, violence, and access to safe public spaces, given the brief COVID-19 public health policy that restricted the mobility of its citizens based on binary understandings of sex and associated cisheteronormativity. These policies restricted access to public spaces and essential services to women on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and to men on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and were enforced based on sex assigned at birth reported via identity documents. Drawing on 25 in-depth interviews with Peruvian trans women, this paper examines the impacts of these COVID-19 policies on trans communities and documents grassroots activism efforts to navigate public space that ultimately demand and assert human rights both during and post-COVID-19. Findings illustrate that while short-lived, the sex-based policies and associated policing in urban public space significantly impacted the well-being of Peruvian trans women. Participants illustrated numerous community-enacted strategies to navigate COVID-19 inequities, including information sharing, crowd-sourcing funds to secure food, pay rent and/or secure housing, and grocery shopping provided by trans people for trans people. Further, community mutual aid efforts have continued and evolved years into the pandemic. Jointly, findings advance understandings of the critical role of public spaces as arenas of political struggles that reveal and challenge a wider spectrum of intersecting oppressions and power structures that trans women continually navigate and resist.</p> </body> </html>Pages
22EISSN
1364-9221ISBN
1355-2074ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2024.2354633