Lately, I've been reading reports and editorials that indicate or imply increasing violence against transgender people. Some people might say that these crimes are simply reported more than they have been in the past; the same claim has been made about the increasing numbers of sexual assaults and incidents of domestic violence in some areas. However, there are some areas--particularly in the Middle East and Latin America--where even the authorities say that all forms of violence, from verbal assaults to murder, are on the rise. In fact, seven out of every ten reported murders of transgender people occur between the Rio Grande and the Tierra del Fuego.
The easy explanations include "machismo" and Islamic fundamentalism, as if those things were definitions of Latin American and Middle Eastern society. Somehow I think there's more to the increasing incidence and brutality of crimes against transgender people.
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