Virginia Messi
08/15/2020 - 15:11
- Clarín.com
- Society
His father was an accountant but, without any family background, at age 20 - back in 1989 - he decided to enter the Federal Police Officers' school. "I had a romantic vision ... later you realize certain realities," he admits. Today he has the rank of commissioner.
He was born a boy, but he always felt like a woman. That is why in 2008 the "transition" began, he changed his ID and started a new life outside. He overcame fear, guilt, feeling like a "weirdo" and showed up in society.
It took him almost a decade to reverse the kick he was given at the Institution when he appeared to them with a skirt demanding his right to continue his police career , without discrimination. But he succeeded. She was reincorporated in 2017, managed to be the first trans officer of a force that "is not characterized by its 'open mind' standards, less so in its upper echelon."
He had, and still keeps and treasures, a great love: his wife Silvia. They met 36 years ago, they were married 26 years ago and he still shares a very tender "complete the phrases" with her.
He was born a boy but he always felt like a woman. In 2010 she was left out of the Force, but had to be reinstated seven years later.
Analía Daniela Marcela Pasantino, 52 years old, lawyer, trans, commissioner (thus, with "or": the "commissioner", as she explains). A person who got tired of breaking molds and with whom it costs very little to sit down and chat, although due to COVID 19 and the quarantine at the time of the report it is necessary to keep her distance in her cozy dining room of her house
In that neighborhood he was born and raised in a very small family: "My father was Spanish, my mother (now 87 years old) is also of Spanish descent. I had no siblings and my cousins were in Europe," says Analía, who did all elementary school. and part of high school in San Cirano.
She only left Caballito once, for two years (from 1998 to 2000), when the Police sent her to the Olavarría Subdelegation, following the tradition of rotating their troops to different destinations. Silvia followed her there, and both began to study law at the university extension center that the Lomas de Zamora Law School had opened in that town.
That was a time when Pasantino (who spent his entire career in the Communications ladder) had "street" cases: he was head of the brigade and he had to deal with small retail drug dealers, or episodes of insecurity. Also -but only in the intimacy of the couple- "Analía" began to take shape.
Analía and Silvia. They were married 26 years ago.
"We started as a game and it got out of hand," says Analia. And Silvia - who also participates in the interview - confirms the fact that they were both the ones who one afternoon, paper and pen in hand, chose "Analia" from a list of 20 possible names.
"Why 'Analía'? I don't know, it seemed to me that it was associated with the word joy, and she is very like that," explains Silvia. The other two names that today appear on her national identity card (Daniela and Marcela) are an inheritance of the male name with which her parents (Daniel and Marcelo) baptized her. "At the beginning I was only going to call Analia Daniela but my mother reproached me 'Aren't you going to call Marcela', which is the name your father chose? '
To be born again
Although every day that passed "Analia" gained more and more space in her life, when Pasantino returned from Olavarría to Buenos Aires her true "self" was still locked inside the home. That was the agreement.
It was the internet that opened up a new world for him. There she met people who were the same as her: they were born and raised as males, but they felt like women. Interacting with peers, exchanging experiences, made me begin to think that a "normal" life (like that, in quotes) was not a utopia, an unattainable fantasy.
"For our generation, being trans meant being destined for two jobs: either a prostitute or a hairdresser. And I was a police officer. I really felt that I was the only one to whom these things happened. The groups on the web and Silvia helped me a lot. "Analía recalls that one day she took the clean and jerk and was telling her friends and acquaintances.
The one who had the hardest time to tell was a friend from the Police Academy, one with whom he had a close friendship, with whom they spent vacations together as a family. "He made it clear to me: 'boluda, how did you not tell me before? If I didn't speak to you now about this I would never have been your friend.' It was a relief."
"I was already looking very androgynous, with more mine clothes than anything else. And one Christmas my mother saw me wearing white pants and told me 'take off that which belongs to a woman'. Then I bleached it with her. From that moment there were rough moments, yes, but he ended up digesting it, we could say it like this ", adds Analia. Her 87-year-old mother has lived with her for about four years when she fell in her apartment.
Together they chose the new name of Commissioner Pasantino: Analía
The toughest and longest battle was with the Argentine Federal Police . It cost Analía that, she thought about it a lot before presenting herself to the Institution as "Analía". And as soon as she informed them of her "transition" they sent her home on medical leave.
There were years and years of expert reports that treated her as an incurable patient. The Permanent Board of Medical Examinations and the Board of Qualifications had given her licenses during the beginning of her adaptation, but they reached a limit.
On September 7, 2010, the then Federal Police Chief Néstor Valleca signed the resolution, leaving her out of the Force . In October 2011 they rejected all their claims and confirmed their mandatory withdrawal. It was unrecoverable , they said.
On how (when she believed everything was lost), her reinstatement arrived, Analia has a very good anecdote: It was the end of January 2016 and she received a call from the Ministry of Security - then commanded by Patricia Bullrich - telling her that they had found her file , the famous "Internship file", and wanted to talk to her.
"Could it be tomorrow?" Analía proposed to them, "because I'm at the Churruca Hospital. We had an accident with my partner on the motorcycle," he explained.
"Irrecoverable". That was what they told her when she appeared dressed as a woman in the Police and then they left her outside the Force.
On the other side they answered him what sounded more logical after reading his file: "And how is he?"
"It is her, it is my wife," replied Officer Pasantino.
A year later everyone would know the story of Analía, or "Ana" as Silvia tells her. On May 8, 2017, the then head of the Federal Néstor Roncaglia welcomed him back to the Force. And it was with an upgrade.
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