What we know today as a TRAVESTI or TRANSVESTITE is something that changes in meaning depending on the context. These contexts can be historical as well as cultural. All to commonly they the context in which these individuals are discussed is nevernever far from the discussion of prejudice, intolerance, substance abuse and violence. These is even more exaggerated when you deal with cultures as complex as that of Brazil. Here the negatives are worsened and there is no one for these individuals to turn to for legitimate and reliable help,
The day to day of these human beings is best described with words like – PREJUDICE , DISCRIMINATION, ABUSE , VIOLENCE. Words that define the daily lives of thousands of Travestis that live in the big cities of Brazil.
From schools ,top homes , to families, to the general media there are an infinite number of situations that cause great suffering to these human beings . Aggressions , discrimination, estrangement , moral insult , and all sorts of individual traumas that we can not even imagine to be able to describe without having lived through these tragedies ourselves. There is so much work that need s to be done to turn this around. To change the homophobia , the prejudice , to simple tolreance and respect of teinherent rights of individuals to be individuals and treated with dignity.
There is not a social refuge for the travesti in Brazil – that is to say not outside of the sex industry , and maybe with a lot of luck and money , maybe a beauty salon. These confines these individuals to dive deeper into the underworld of prostitution and human trafficking, , and whether we agree or disagree with these activities we must respect that they are not themselves breaking any laws and are only trying to survive.
There are countless rights as citizens that these individuals are denied here, in most cases they and their loved one are unaware of all that they are being denied by way of basic human rights, Their rights to property and professional opportunity are compromised consistently. There are no laws established for their protection and leaves these human individuals to a world with out law and order for them to seek recourse from./
SOS DIGNITY wants to change this. We want to change the daily suffering to daily success so that they may enjoy the basic rights and freedoms that all human beings are entitled to. And we need YOUR helphelo to do this , we need your help now. Tomorrow is a hell away when we could be building steps to a earthly home that would give hope that even a heaven could be found in the here and now.
