Casa Grande AZ, and a look at transgender murders in Brazil

I walked 15.02 miles in the last three days in San Diego.

On the mapped route to Washington D.C., that takes us parallel with Casa Grande, named after the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, which is actually located in Coolidge. 

Casa Grande was founded in 1879 during the Arizona mining boom, specifically due to the presence of the Southern Pacific Railroad. In January 1880, the community of Terminus, meaning "end-of-the-line," was established despite consisting of just five residents and three buildings.^[3] In September 1880, railroad executives renamed the settlement Casa Grande, after the Hohokam ruins at the nearby Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. 

Casa Grande grew slowly, and suffered several setbacks both in 1886 and 1893, when fires ravaged the town, destroying all wooden housing structures within it.^[3] When the mining boom slowed in the 1890s, the town was nearly abandoned, but with the advent of agriculture, the town remained alive and well, and was eventually incorporated in 1915.^[3]

One of the founding fathers of Casa Grande was Thompson Rodney Peart. Peart Road, Peart Park, and the Peart Center, all of which are notable fixtures of Casa Grande, are named after him.
Casa Grande was home to a collective farm society which was part of the New Deal.
According to historian David Leighton, during World War II, from 1942 to 1945, a Japanese-American relocation camp was set up outside of Casa Grande, known as the Gila River War Relocation Center. Two notable people that were interned there were future actor Pat Morita and baseball player Kenichi Zenimura, who constructed a baseball field and set up a league in the relocation camp.^[4]
(Wikipedia)

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As the world turns its eyes on Rio de Janeiro tonight for the Olympic opening ceremonies, I thought I might highlight how Brazil treats transgender people.

Changing legal gender assignment in Brazil is legal according to the Superior Court of Justice of Brazil, as stated in a decision rendered on October 17, 2009.^[1]  Unanimously, the 3rd Class of the Superior Court of Justice approved allowing the option of name and gender change on the birth certificate of a transsexual who has undergone gender reassignment surgery.  The understanding of the ministers was that it made no sense to allow people to have such surgery performed in the free federal health system, Sistema Único de Saúde, and not allow them to change their name and gender in the civil registry. (Wikipedia)

Although Brazil's laws seem to support the transgender community, the fact is that Brazil has the highest murder rate in the world of transgender people.  From 2008-2014, there were 689 murders of transgender people in Brazil.  Compare that with 108 in the USA (ranked 2nd for transphobic murders in the world) in the same time period, or 194 in Mexico (which ranks 3rd).  And these numbers may be the tip of the iceberg, because many transgender murders go unreported, particularly in Brazil.


According to a report by Transgender Europe, one of the reasons for such high murder rates in Brazil is widespread transphobia that emerged during Brazil's dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, after president João Goulart was deposed by a military coup.

"Gender-variant/trans people became a target of military repression, as they were seen to pose a threat to 'Brazilian family morals'," the report said.

Many transgender people were forced to resort to sex work because they were marginalized and discriminated against in the workplace, and given few other opportunities. As a result, sex workers make up the largest group of victims of violence in Central and South America, the report said.
While the term "travesti" had previously been associated with popular transgender theatre actors who were publicly accepted, the dictatorship realigned the term with prostitution and crime.
"Military police continued to hunt down gender variant/trans people, now with the support of so-called death squads and vigilante groups," the report continued.
 
It is estimated that the life expectancy for trans people in Brazil is about 30, according to Rio-based transgender rights group Transrevolução, while the average Brazilian lives to age 75.  ("Brazil Targeting Trans People With Impunity" Al Jazeera, 22 April 2015

It's not getting better, if anything it may be getting worse.  As many as 56 transgender people were murdered in Brazil in 2015 (2 of which were murdered in Rio de Janeiro), and one source said that at least 48 transgender people were murdered in Brazil recently in just one month, January of 2016.

So, while you are watching the "party" tonight and the games through the next 2 1/2 weeks, remember that if I were in Brazil, I, as a transgender woman, might be targeted by a hit squad because I might be regarded as a threat to "Brazilian family morals."