Rodríguez is giving hope to the El Salvador Trans community through an NGO focusing on helping them to live their lives safely.
LGBTQIA+ activist Bianka Gabriela Rodríguez is not yet 30 years old and she has already changed the stars of history. Born in El Salvador, a country where trans women have to change their gender presentation just to be allowed to vote, Rodríguez has firsthand experience of the violence and gender-based discrimination that plagues the country. Through new initiatives and an enduring sense of hope, Rodríguez has made it her life’s mission to fight for the human rights of the country’s LGBTQIA+ population. She dreams that they can discover their voice and live out their true identities.
With one of the highest homicide rates in the world and widespread economic precarity, El Salvador is a challenging place to live for everyone; but for transgender women, who have a life expectancy of less than 35 years, it can be life-threatening. “From an early age, I recognized the harassment and the risks of transitioning towards the internal experience I always identified with,” Rodríguez recalls. “Embracing my identity was a complex process.” Actions of persecution and extortion, and threats of violence force people to surrender their measures of self-protection and preclude many from developing their identities in full, not to mention the opportunity struggles and mental health problems that LGBTQIA+ people face every day. Nevertheless, Rodríguez describes transitioning toward her internal experience as a source of empowerment. “Despite being in a country that, in effect, makes [LGBTQIA+] people invisible,” she says, “recognizing everything that being Bianka Rodríguez represents makes me feel full.”
While leaving El Salvador for a safer place might mean an easier life for Rodríguez, it is her mission to stay in the country and change the living conditions for all. And she is not doing it alone. As executive director of COMCAVIS TRANS, an NGO focused on spearheading the fight for human rights for LGBTQIA+ people and key populations in El Salvador, Rodríguez believes that leadership is a force of collaboration. “Leadership should be shared and not just fall to a single person,” she says, “especially because when it comes to leadership it should come by way of a cascade, where each and every member of the organization has the same opportunities, voice, and horizontality when making decisions.”
Rodríguez says that the people in history who have previously fought for Human Rights and continue to do so still are her inspiration—people like Karla Avelar, founder of COMCAVIS TRANS. After surviving multiple assassination attempts, Avelar was forced to flee the country, but continues to fight for the rights of LGBTQIA+ people. “Karla Avelar continues to be an activist,” Rodríguez emphasizes. “Our Casa Refugio, a shelter for [LGBTQIA+] people at risk with protection needs, was named in her honor.” Casa Refugio Karla Avelar provides psychosocial care, shelter, and legal advice to LGBTQIA+ people in El Salvador. Both Avelar and Rodríguez, who have been directly affected by the violence in the country, have used their experiences to inform their tireless fight for Human Rights. “I believe that having directly lived experiences of violence has made me reflect on the need to transform this situation in our country,” Rodríguez says. “I believe that it is necessary to carry out initiatives to improve the living conditions of all.”
“I believe that having directly lived experiences of violence has made me reflect on the need to transform this situation in our country. ”
Collaborating with key players throughout El Salvador, she has ushered in new initiatives in favor of breaking the cycles of violence and making efforts towards social inclusion. Most recently, on July 18th, COMCAVIS TRANS collaborated with another NGO called Human Rights Watch to publish a 40-page report entitled: “We Just Want to Live Our Lives: El Salvador’s Need for Legal Gender Recognition.” The report exposes several insidious forms of discrimination that trans people endure, most notably how identity government documents are out of keeping with a trans person’s gender identity. Researchers for Human Rights Watch and COMCAVIS TRANS found that inaccurate identity documents lead to four main areas of discrimination: health, employment, voting, and banking. The report urges the Legislative Assembly to create a procedure to allow trans people to be able to document their true identity.
The practice of hope is another golden thread in Rodríguez’s approach to leadership. Through advocacy, new leadership, and initiatives, she believes that the dark course of history can shift toward something brighter. “[Violence] has a long history in our country, but it does not mean that it can’t be changed.” she says. “Given the weakness of state institutions, the way to ensure the protection of [LGBTQIA+] people is to generate new policies that improve the development and enforcement of our rights.” Through mutual aid and solidarity, Rodríguez strives to empower LGBTQIA+ individuals with a sense of autonomy by forging opportunities and carrying out new initiatives. Working with displaced people, she has observed the impact that opportunity has on people’s sense of hope. “The victims of these situations can restore their life projects in an environment where they have new hope, where they can fully develop a place where their lives are not at risk.”
Rodríguez has observed a change in the culture that she hopes will continue. Only in recent years has she found LGBTQIA+ people represented in the media in a dignified way. Historically, she says, the community has been portrayed as a joke or in a mocking manner. But evidence of a changing culture in more realistic and respectful representations of the LGBTQIA+ have recently entered the media. The key to a more tolerant culture, Rodríguez believes, is advocacy. “Within the organization, we have carried out various initiatives to influence a social and cultural transformation at the level of the [LGBTQIA+] population and at the level of the general population.” COMCAVIS TRANS created “Forming Leaders with Denounce Culture”, an initiative aimed to encourage the practice of denunciation and combat the countless crimes towards trans people that go unreported. In culture and in policy, initiatives like these strive to change the context of politics and culture. “The aim,” Rodríguez explains, “is to break cycles of violence and, in turn, promote a more favorable context for the creation of public policies and initiatives to guarantee social inclusion.”
“The victims of these situations can restore their life projects in an environment where they have new hope, where they can fully develop a place where their lives are not at risk.”
In 2019, Rodríguez was honored with the UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award for her outstanding service to protect refugees, displaced and stateless people and her efforts to protect the human rights of LGBTQIA+ people. The award was as much an achievement for herself as it was for COMCAVIS TRANS, she says. “It is a motivator to continue working for human rights and for the protection of the LGBTQIA+ people at risk.”
In a world that makes trans people feel as if they do not matter, Rodríguez is the hopeful reminder that change is within reach. That with enough wind, from advocacy and new leadership, the currents of cruelty can shift. “I believe that initiatives in favor of vulnerable populations can really lead to large-scale social transformations.”
This story first appeared in Mission’s UN Issue.
