According to measures taken in Peru and Panama to fight the Corona virus, people are now only allowed to leave their homes based on their gender. Women and men each on three different days per week. This poses great challenges and fears for transgender and non-binary people. There are reports from Panama already that members of the trans* community have been fined.

In order to contain the spread of the Corona virus, Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra announced on Thursday that he would take a new measure: Men will only be allowed to leave their homes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays – women on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. A general curfew applies on Sundays.

The measure is a supplement to the general restrictions that already came into force on  March, 15th. According to Vizcarra, these did not bring the desired results. Gender segregation is now to be aimed at reducing by half the number of people being outside thir homes at the same time. In Panama, a similar restriction came into force on Wednesday, which is applies for coming 15 days.

Vizcarra stressed that the security forces and police officers in charge of monitoring the streets were asked to respect the gender identity of queer people and not to adopt a homo- or transphobic attitude.

However, this was not enough to curb the fear of unwanted outings, exposure and fines in the community. Cristian Gonzalez Cabrera of Human Rights Watch told Thomson Reuters news agency that the rules exclude people. More precisely:

“The measures raise red flags for transgenders who do not necessarily fall into the traditional gender categories of men and women accepted by society.”

Trans* woman in Panama must pay fine

Barbara Delgado from Panama

In addition to the fear of having to justify and explain oneself in public to strangers or police officers, there is also the fear of fines. At least four people have already been harassed and questioned by people or the country’s police, explained Venus Tejada, a transgender rights activist from Panama. She expressed her displeasure about the situation:

“I am concerned about the level of abuse and vulnerability that trans* men and women are going through at the moment. We have gone back to the time of Adam and Eve, where there was only man and woman and nothing else.”

Among those affected is Barbara Delgado, a trans woman from Panama. She was fined by the police because of the new exit restrictions. She told Thomson Reuters that she felt terrible – emotionally and psychologically broken. Since the incident she has been afraid to leave the house.

The position of the trans* community in the countries is difficult anyway. In Panama, people have only been able to have their gender adjusted on identity cards and birth certificates since 2006 – on condition that they have undergone corresponding operations. In Peru, the procedure is possible without the need for an operation – but only since 2016. Two years earlier, the constitutional court ruled that gender depends only on the chromosomes and that entries cannot be changed afterwards.

In the Spartacus Gay Travel Index 2020, Panama ranked 66th and Peru 103rd.

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