Kimberly Ayala, the day of recognition as a lawyer in Paraguay.PANTALONHAPE
Kimberly Ayala has managed to become the first trans lawyer in Paraguay, a South American country where trans women have an average life expectancy of 35 years and 60 transfeminicides have been registered since 1989, without any attention from the courts.
Ayala is 29 years old, was born in Hernandarias, a small city on the border with Brazil, and five years ago she finished her law degree at the National University of the East of Paraguay, with honors.
But when he asked the Supreme Court for his oath in 2015, he received no response.
Months passed and nothing.
He had to insist that they answered that they could not process his request because his photo "did not match the name."
Ayala explained to the Court that she is a trans woman and that she wanted to swear with her current image, but that she had no problem doing so with the male name that appears on her national identity document.
The officer in charge told her that her boss was not going to sign her application.
"I felt very disappointed, like a failure," says Ayala.
But she didn't give up and defended herself as if it were her first case.
With the support of another lawyer, she appealed to the Gender Secretariat of the Supreme Court, who agreed with her and asked to reassess the situation "under penalty of the institution falling into an act of discrimination."
Despite this, the Court did not respond to his request.
Ayala tried to communicate personally with the ministers, but there was no case.
He could not work, he lived in the house of his retired mother and his civil servant father in Hernandarias, a city that is declared “pro-life” by municipal resolution and that in 2019 prohibited the local march for TLGBI rights.
That same year, fed up with the situation, Ayala went to the NGO Amnesty International.
This organization took their case as a banner and accompanied Diversxs, Codehupy, Repadis and other local groups.
The campaign in support of Paraguay's first trans lawyer started on social media and reached the local media.
On Monday, November 9, Amnesty and the other groups summoned the press and their volunteers to go to the Palace of Justice.
And so it was that fifty people and cameras waited in front of one of the most conservative institutions in the country, where Kimberly Ayala could enter and take her oath dressed in a jacket and skirt, with the rainbow flag on her mask, before the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Alberto Martínez Simón.
“I am very happy for this achievement.
Now my dream is to be a judge.
I hope it awakens hope for a population that is always so invisible and marginalized.
A new beginning that can have a happy ending, "Ayala said after being appointed as a lawyer.
Live waiting for death
The trans population of Paraguay suffers violence, discrimination and lack of access to rights such as work, health or education, according to the report Waiting for death, prepared by the Center for Documentation and Trans Situation of Latin America and the Caribbean (Cedostalc) , the Latin American and Caribbean Network of trans people (RedLactrans), and the Panambí organization, which brings together trans, transvestites and transgender people in Paraguay.
The report recalls that the different types of violence and the living conditions of trans people in the region mean that the average life expectancy of a trans woman in Paraguay and Latin America is 35 years: half of what a transgender woman is expected to live. cisgender person.
Yren Rotela, a veteran transgender rights activist in Paraguay who has been demanding a name change for four years, said that Ayala's case “marks a before and after for us, us and us in the struggle. for the right to be who we really are and for the right to a truly inclusive education ”.
"We will continue working, fighting for those who are alive, for those who murdered, for our migrant companions, for our rural companions and for those who will come," added Rotela, who also accompanied Ayala on the day of her oath.
"This is a historic step for the TLGBI community and today we are very happy to share it," said the Director of Amnesty International Paraguay, Rosalía Vega.
Ayala hopes to find work soon.
While looking for opportunities, she plans a project with Rotela to assist incarcerated trans people.
“We want to go to the prisons to help the trans companions in prison, because they are the most abandoned and invisible.
We want to improve their quality of life inside and outside so that when they leave they can have a decent job, ”Ayala announced.
The brand new lawyer also promised to continue fighting for a law against all forms of discrimination in Paraguay, as it exists in other countries in the region, because "it will bring a benefit to the entire discriminated population, not only the TLGBI, it will also serve peasants, indigenous people, victim of racism or discrimination due to overweight ”.