Save Fernanda Milan

First; I'm not very active on LJ anymore, please look for Pippin Hoeg Lorenzen on facebook or hoeg on Dreamwidth if you feel a need to check.

Fernanda Milan, a trans woman and activist from Guatemala, came to Denmark to seek asylum in 2009 because trans people are persecuted in her home country.

At the center for asylum seekers, Sandholmlejren which is run by Danish Red Cross, she was put in the men's ward, and was raped repeatedly. The leader of the center, Anne la Cour, later said in an interview that of course they couldn't put her in the women's ward, they couldn't put a man there. Article, in Danish.
While she was there, she was referred to the Danish national center for transgender health care; Rigshospitalets Sexologisk Klinik, that refused to continue the hrt she'd been on since she was 14, because she didn't fulfill their critera for the psychiatric diagnosis 'transsexual'. (The clinic's treatment of trans people in general is medieval, not just in this case.) Her hrt was thus discontinued.

After a gang rape at the center, she escaped, but not having many options as an illegal immigrant, she ended up being trafficked into sex work. She lived like that for about a year, until the brothel was raided by police, and she was handed over to Reden International, an organization that fights trafficking in Denmark.

Now her claim for asylum has been denied, because Danish law doesn't recognize gender identity as a reason for persecution (just like our general laws for discrimination don't include gender identity, and the only law regulating trans people's access to treatment is a law about castration of sex offenders from the beginning of the 20th century.) This is despite recommendations from both UN and EU, and the directive by the European Parliament 2011/95 eu, which specifically mentions gender identity as ground for asylum (article 10d). ILGA Europe has written to the Danish Minister for Justice about this, and activists in both Denmark, UK and Spain are protesting to stop the deportation which is scheduled for September 17th, but since the decision is not against Danish law, and the media have been very uninterested in covering this story, it's almost impossible to apply any kind of pressure.

Please sign this petition, which is simply a statement of support for stopping the deportation of Fernanda (it's not addressed at anyone in particular at this moment). And if you have other ideas for bringing more attention to this case, please do!



LGBT Denmark's reaction - it's in Danish, but please click on the link 'Rapport: Disturbing knowledge'

Save Fernanda Milan on Facebook