85-Year-Old Mexican Transgender Woman Dreams of Opening LGBT Retirement Home Agencia EFE | |
go to original June 25, 2017 |
A Mexican trans woman says she is planning to open her country’s first retirement home for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
The president of the “Laetus Vitae” (Joyous Life) civil association, Samantha Flores, said the project was aimed at eradicating inequality and discrimination and lending visibility to the problems LGBT individuals face when they become senior citizens.
“The elderly adult has to go back into the closet to be accepted,” Flores told EFE in Mexico City, saying she is confident that 400,000 pesos ($21,160) would allow her to keep the facility open for one year.
Although she acknowledges that it will be difficult to raise that sum of money through donations, she hopes that at least she will be able to rent an apartment to house 30 elderly adults.
The project will function initially as a free-of-charge “day home” but the idea is to offer medical and residential services typical of an assisted-living facility and for similar establishments to be set up in other states.
The 85-year-old Flores, who was born Vicente in Orizaba, a town in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, said that if elderly people in general are neglected by institutions and their own families, “LGBT senior citizens don’t even exist.”
... (At least 202 murders of members of the LGBT community occurred between 2014 and 2016 in Mexico, a rate of nearly six homicides per month, with female trans individuals bearing the brunt of the violence, the non-governmental organization Letra S said in a report earlier this year based on media monitoring.)
Flores said that although there is greater sexual freedom today in Mexico, a pending challenge for the future is to “eradicate discrimination against the community and ensure a social meeting point.”
Read the rest at Latin American Herald Tribune
Related: 17 Ambassadors to Join LGBT Pride March in Mexico City (El Universal)
Related: Recent Achievements for the Trans Community in Mexico City (The News)
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