With anger, a certain part of the population responds to the question about whether they define themselves as part of the LGBTI + community in the INEC survey

The calculation of the performance in the labor market of the LGBTI + population (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex) in the National Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment (Enemdu) requires questions to respondents about whether they self-identify as part of that community.

There is higher unemployment among people in the LGBTIQ + community who are transsexuals and transvestites, according to survey

It is the same that occurs when the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC) consults on ethnic self-identification to define mestizos, whites, Afro-Ecuadorians, indigenous people and Montuvios. Thus, the level of employment, unemployment and underemployment in these groups is obtained.

The official body of figures of the country did this exercise last September with a view to also calculating unemployment among members of the LGBTI + group, with a specific question, as answers are obtained for men and women, by age or ethnic self-definition.

Felipe Ochoa, Undersecretary of Diversities – an entity created under the current regime of President Guillermo Lasso as part of the National Secretariat for Human Rights – followed up on the process and affirms that the reactions of certain respondents were not adequate.

“The instrument must be strengthened. The results are not probabilistic because the Enemdu is made to the inhabitants in general, not to the LGBTI + group. When asking questions about sexual orientation and sex-gender diversity with a population that is not necessarily sensitized on the subject, the answers were quite ambiguous, they did not want to answer or even some of the people answered with anger or with some uncomfortable situation for pollsters, so there is still a very important challenge there ”.

The interviewers were trained by the Secretariat for Human Rights and the International Organization for Migration for one week, to include the variables of sexual orientation and gender-gender diversity.

“The problem is with society. It is important that we have data on the LGBTI + population for decision making. These reactions of the respondents is what shows what needs to be worked on. The challenge of the State is to begin to raise awareness about the need to have this information”Says Ochoa.

Members of the LGBTI + community are invisible in official statistics, which is being sought to change.

“We have to sensitize the population so that at the time of answering they do not feel uncomfortable, they do not get angry and there is no process of LGBTI phobia, even, so to speak, that is, a violent reaction against pollsters,” he adds.

The Human Rights Secretariat will begin a process of sensitization during 2022 because the INEC plans to include the variables of sexual orientation and gender-gender diversity in the next national census.

After the results of the test, the variables of gender identity and sexual orientation were incorporated with the inclusion of improved questions in the pilot census that was carried out on November 23 in the Limón Indanza canton, in the Morona Santiago province.

The INEC responded via e-mail to this newspaper that the exercise carried out in September allows “Generate a first methodological and conceptual basis that, in the future, will allow incorporating these variables into the country’s statistical operations.”

But it reports that household surveys such as Enemdu “are not presented as a good alternative to obtain the size or the social and economic conditions of LGBTI + populations. For this reason, the use of alternative sampling methods that allow a better capture of this information should be evaluated”.

According to the agency, “it is necessary to incorporate into planning the inclusion of study variables in administrative records with statistical potential. In addition, the use of sample methods directed by informants for a specific survey is evaluated, for which it is working jointly with civil society, academia and the Government ”.

The leader Karina Rashell was called Ricardo Javier at birth and he changed it

Karina Rashell Erazo, a 40-year-old trans woman and president of the Alfil Association (an organization that defends the rights of trans and LGBTI + populations), is not surprised by the reactions of the population to the self-identification questionnaires.

She herself says that she has suffered discrimination and fear, so from an early age she hid her predilection to feel and see herself as a woman.

“Being born a boy, I realized that I had a taste that I perceived was not generally that of the rest of the children, like dressing as a woman when there was no one in the room or at home.. And I felt that if they discovered me I would go very badly. I’m talking about the eighties, worse if they noticed it at school or in the neighborhood. One felt like a criminal ”, indicates Rashell, a name that he has today on his identity card as well as the female gender.

These reactions from society made Rashell suppress his desire to see himself as a woman. “He did men’s things like rude activities.”

But she could not sustain the lie, since when she was fourteen years old one day she did not go to school and she thought she would be alone in the house. He says that he locked himself in his mother’s room to “produce”, that is, dress and paint to see himself as a woman.

Her mother had forgotten something, so she returned home and discovered it. “My blood ran cold. I had to lie to him. I told him that there would be a play and that he had to represent a female character, but with all his clothes scattered around he did not believe me. She cried, she asked me in a terrified way if I was homosexual, she took me to the psychologist to whom I promised not to do it again, ”says Rashell.

But when she turned 24 years old, she left the house where she lived with her mother and younger brother, to finally begin her transition and see herself as a woman. Today her family and relatives accept her.

These are situations that continue, despite the fact that there are fewer taboos in this regard, adds the leader.

The Organic Law on Identity Management and Civil Data (LOGIDC), approved in January 2016, established the legal recognition of gender identity that regulates the change from the field “sex” to “gender” in the identity card .

This made it easier for trans people to change their names according to the gender identity with which they self-identify, that is, contrary to the sex they were assigned at birth.

The gender registration in the identity card began on August 3, 2016. Since then, a total of 1,551 trans people have changed their names from men to women or from women to men. What’s more, 583 only registered the gender opposite to the one assigned at birth, the majority from male to female.

Since before the LOGIDC came into force, trans people could already change their name and transsexuals (those who had transitioned from male to female genitalia, or vice versa) could also change the gender line, as appropriate, says Rashell.

“The procedure required a certificate from the clinic where the surgical operation was performed and the sex was changed on the ID through a lawyer from man to woman (or vice versa). With the LOGIDC, what is done is to replace the sex information by gender in the (physical) identity card, but in the identity document it is reverted and it remains that it was originally male or female (depending on the case) ”, he adds.

Those that only register gender had already changed their name and equated identity information, according to the law in force since 2016.

The service has only been carried out on a national scale since April 26, 2021, “once the new System for the Issuance of Electronic Cédulas and Passports (SEDIP) was implemented”, indicates via e-mail the Civil Registry.

With these changes, it is necessary to have the identity card of the applicant and that of two witnesses, the entity informs, although it then adds as an optional requirement “the sworn statement, the witness’s passport, the witness’s refugee card and the country’s identity document. of origin of the witness for the member countries of the Andean Community of Nations ”.

The estimated time for care is approximately 60 minutes, according to the agency.

Sentenced trans people must decide whether to go to the ward according to their gender self-identification, says Ochoa

One of the first steps during the regime so far was the creation of the Diversities Undersecretariat with two directorates. One to guide public policy for the LGBTI + population and another to prevent and monitor violence against the group.

The National Planning Secretariat also approved a project to work on masculinities, sensitization of the population on gender, women and diversity with an investment of $ 1.5 million. “It is what is necessary for the gathering of information given the experience with Enemdu and that there are no violent acts at the time of asking these types of questions”, Assures Ochoa.

Another action will be the creation of training schools to provide trans people with tools and skills, in order to create entrepreneurial processes with decent work. “In 2023 we hope to have a fund with seed capital so that graduates can start their projects,” says the official.

In the Undersecretariat of Diversities they hope that the National Service of Comprehensive Attention to Adults Deprived of Liberty and Adolescent Offenders of Ecuador deliver the list of inmates who are part of the LGBTI + population.

The objective is to carry out identification brigades in prisons so that trans people who want to can change their names and register the gender with which they self-identify.

“After that they will decide in which detention center they will spend the sentence, it is an autonomous decision. There are cases like that of a trans woman in Loja who preferred to stay in the men’s ward. Gender self-identification is own and individual. The State cannot force a trans person to self-identify or locate themselves in one pavilion or another, ”says Ochoa.

There are prosecutors and judges, says the official, who establish processes of investigation of crimes in which the accused or the victim is identified as a trans person if he expresses himself as such, even when he has not made a gender change in the identity card, a hormonal transition process or operation, because not all do.

“The problem is that there are also prosecutors who state in the reports that it cannot be proven that they are a trans person. It happened with a murdered trans girl a few months ago. Neither a prosecutor nor a judge nor the State can tell a person if he is trans or not, he decides for himself, it is a gender self-identification, “says Ochoa.

The last diagnosis of the living conditions and access to rights of the LGBTI + population of the INEC was in 2013.

Ochoa says that there will be two information gathering processes focused on this population, in order to update the 2013 survey, a case study that was made with a questionnaire answered by 2,800 people at that time.

“This time it will be done with another method to reach some 10,000 people from the LGBTI + population.”

And with the investment of $ 113,000 through the German cooperation GIZ, a specialized study of violence against the group is being prepared, which will begin in January and the first results will be ready in December 2022. (I)