Transgender Latinas Face a 'Legion of Stigmas' Olivia P. Tallet - Houston Chronicle
go to original July 5, 2016

Andrea Molina, director and coordinator of Latino Organization of Trans in Texas (Organizacion Latina de Trans en Texas or OLTT) in Houston. They are the only organization in Houston and Texas completely dedicated to Latino Transgender and LGBT people, a non-for-profit supported by their own members. (Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle)

She crossed the Rio Grande as an undocumented, transgendered woman, fleeing after a serial sexual assault left her in shame and fearing for her life.

Now, 15 years later, Andrea Molina is director of the Organización Latina de Trans de Texas (Latin Organization of Texas Trans), which she founded after being expelled from the bathroom of a Latino organization in Houston. She and her co-founders, all trans women, decided that if they didn't take control of their destiny, no one was going to do it for them, she said.

The organization is the only one in Texas dedicated to empower, educate and develop leadership for transgender Hispanics, among the most stigmatized individuals in the LGBT community.

Being a transgender woman, a Latina and an undocumented immigrant is "like having a legion of stigmas against you," Molina said.

..."The interception of being a Latina, a trans and an undocumented person is a combination that could be triple times more grave in terms of stigmatization," said Janet Quezada, spokesperson for a national gay and lesbian advocacy group that goes by the acronym GLAAD.

While the stigmatization exists everywhere, Quezada said, it's "more prevalent in states like Texas because of their closeness to the border and their larger population of trans escaping from abuses they face in countries like Mexico and from Central America."

Read the rest at Houston Chronicle

Related: Mexico Is Hell for Transgender Women (West)

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