LOS ANGELES – Since the start of this second Trump Administration the trans community has seen hard won rights steadily stripped away. For trans immigrants, the current moment is doubly fraught as the administration pursues its mass deportation agenda.
Longtime trans activist Bamby Salcedo tells ACoM it feels as if the community has been tripped intentionally and is now simply trying to regain its footing.
“We’ve gone from one setback to another,” said Salcedo, speaking from the offices of her organization, TransLatin@ Coalition in Los Angeles. “Our organization lost $1.5 million in funding, forcing us to close two centers and cut staff. We had to let go of around 10 people.”
Targeting the trans community
Salcedo founded TransLatin@ in 2009 as part of a grassroots movement of trans and gender non-conforming immigrant women in Los Angeles. The organization has gained nationwide recognition for its work supporting the immigrant trans community.
Since returning to office Trump has issued a series of executive actions designed to cut funding for programs that support trans people. Across the country, 55 anti-trans bills have been passed by state legislatures this year. Congress, meanwhile, is considering 127 national bills impacting trans people’s right to education, healthcare, and participation in sports and the military, among other issues.
Salcedo says last year Congress threatened to officially list TransLatin@ as a criminal organization. Lawmakers accused the organization of using government funds to organize protests over police violence.
“Obviously, these are lies,” insisted Salcedo, “but we know we are in the eye of the MAGA hurricane.”
According to Salcedo, at least 10 clients of TransLatin@ have been arrested after showing up for appointments with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or at immigration court.
She added that even as rights are being stripped from the trans community violence targeting trans people is on the rise.
“Last year 54 trans people were killed in the US, and around 500 trans people were killed worldwide. The violence against us continues,” said Salcedo. She added that her organization will nevertheless “continue to fight for trans people’s place in society.”
Fleeing abuse, violence
Salcedo came to the US in 1985 at 16 years old. “I left Guadalajara because of the harassment and discrimination that I suffered,” she said. “By the age of 12, I’d started getting arrested and placed in juvenile detention, coming and going out of correction centers.”
A lack of opportunity brought her to the streets where she earned a living doing sex work. She also developed a dangerous drug habit during these years, becoming a frequent target for arrest by local law enforcement.
“In my case, we were very poor. My mom was single with little education. There was no one I could rely on,” recalled Salcedo, whose father lived in the US. During one of his visits to Guadalajara he met Salcedo while she was behind bars. He told her that he would help if she came north.
“He left me his phone number. When I got out of jail, I said, ‘I’d better leave, because I don’t see a future here.’ That’s how I ended up with my dad in San Jose. But he had already rebuilt his life there, and I wasn’t welcome in his house. Eventually my dad sent me to live with some cousins in Northern California, where I worked in a tortilla factory and was a victim of labor exploitation.”
When she turned 18, Salcedo made the decision to become independent. “I’d had enough and so came to Los Angeles around 1988. This is where I began my transition to becoming a woman.”
‘My spirit had left me’
Still, her life remained a challenge, given the lack of resources available to trans women at that time. “The only thing society offered us was the street,” said Salcedo.
In Los Angeles, she fell into a similar pattern, continuing in the sex trade while selling drugs and committing petty theft to make ends meet.
“I didn’t have an eccentric criminal life. I did prostitution, drug dealing, and petty theft to survive, but I was tired of the abuse and that life of violence.”
That’s when she prayed to God for help.
“It was August 6 and I was here in downtown LA,” recalled Salcedo, “on Central and 7th. I hadn’t slept for three days and was smoking crack. I felt empty, desolate and desperate, as if my spirit had left me.”
A person passed her by on the street and she asked for change.
“He gave me five dollars which I used to buy food. Then I got in a truck, and I fell asleep. When the truck’s route ended, I took another one and another. I don’t know how I got off on a street in the San Fernando Valley.”
Wandering aimlessly like a lost soul, she suddenly stumbled upon a rehabilitation center. “I went in and asked for help. That’s where my recovery from drug addiction began.”
Her healing process included the opportunity for employment at an organization focused on social justice, where her interest in helping the community was born.
“Little by little I learned until we were able to form this organization TransLatin@ Coalition in 2009; today it is among the largest trans organizations in the United States,” Salcedo says.
Step by step, we move forward
But building the organization was not easy.
“The first six years we worked as volunteers, bringing people in our community to services, connecting them to lawyers. We had no funding from anyone,” said Salcedo.
In 2015 she left her work at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles to dedicate herself full time to Translatin@. In January of 2016, the organization received its first grants.
“It has always been difficult, but little by little we were making progress, climbing one step at a time. We achieved policy changes in different aspects, but then this administration came along and one of the first executive orders was to say that there were only two sexes, male and female, and to remove the other sexes from passports.”
Then they started removing trans people from the army.
“The damage done to us in these last two years is immense. Violence continues to escalate within our community, and the few rights we have managed to achieve in recent years are being rolled back,” she said.
Still, Salcedo remains determined, if not cautiously optimistic.
“As an organization, we are trying to shed some light on the situation through our work, using our visibility both online and in community.”
A message of hope
Regarding her life, Salcedo says it is a miracle that she was able to escape the darkness she experienced for so long.
“Today I feel a great responsibility to my community and society in general,” she said.
Asked what message she would send to the trans community at large, she said:
Don’t be afraid; we must continue working to be visible in this society, but we must also fight for our existence within it. So come closer, get involved, and we are here to support you.”
This story is part of “Aquí Estamos/Here We Stand,” a collaborative reporting project of American Community Media and community news outlets statewide.
