Jennicet Gutiérrez is a transgender Latina activist and organizer with Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement. She gained national attention after interrupting President Obama’s speech at an LGBT pride event hosted by the White House.
BPR: What led you to become an activist for those who are both transgender and undocumented?
JG: As a trans Latina woman, I had been putting a lot of emphasis on assimilation. I lived in fear of being undocumented and of being trans. Once I began to see how our communities were being targeted by the state and the structural violence that we’re facing, I couldn’t continue to stay quiet. I had to take action. I met a wonderful, powerful activist CeCe McDonald, who lived inside the prison industrial complex. She had been incarcerated for two years and the conditions that she experienced, the misgendering — it’s a major issue for our community. Once we are put inside in a prison or detention center, we face continued abuse. I spoke to two undocumented trans women from Guatemala…[who] turned themselves in to immigration, only to be put into these detention centers. Again, misgendering became an issue; they were detained with men and subject to physical and sexual abuse. The guards would make fun of them whenever they wanted to shower: “Oh, turn around. Let me see your breasts. Can I touch your ass?”
BPR: What does intersectionality mean to you?
JG: For me, being trans and being undocumented — it’s difficult to separate the two. I can’t get up in the morning and say, “Today, I’m going to go and participate in the trans community and the issues that we’re dealing with,” and the next day wake up and say, “Now I’m going to go participate in the undocumented community.” One of the biggest challenges we have as organizations and activists moving forward is to make this connection...Every opportunity I see to potentially connect the struggles with other communities, I will take the initiative to do so, even if other organizations do not see the connections yet.
BPR: Is it possible for prison or detention centers to adequately accommodate trans people?
JG: I really don’t think so…We’re dealing with a bigger issue here, which is transphobia. Any time you have someone who challenges that [gender] binary, even if it’s on paper, it’s extremely difficult for people to see [our] humanity…It seems to give them the power to step on us and take our humanity away.
BPR: Who are your most important political allies?
JG: I would say the best political allies are other organizations aligning themselves with a radical political agenda. And by radical, we mean challenging the status quo. Some organizations believe that the system is doing the best that it can and that that’s the only way, but we believe that there has to be an alternative to the way our communities are being treated.