Dona practiced prostitution in the seventies under the mythical Serrador bridge in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. “It was the only way out, they didn’t hire us anywhere, they did not want trans women, or we prostituted ourselves or dedicated ourselves to singing“, Dona explains about a group that still today is around 85% unemployed in Spain.”Once four little boys raped us, they forced usThey did with us what those bastards wanted, “explains Marcela.” They beat us, pulled our hair, forced us to do all kinds of atrocities and rudeness and they left us lying like pure shit at the end of Las Teresitas beach“explains Marcela harshly.
“They stoned us, beat us, threw stones at us from cars,” say two women who have just received a tribute from the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council and the Canary Islands Government through the General Directorate of Diversity, which has given them a plaque under the bridge that crosses the hell they went through. Marcela and Dona were arrested dozens of times for “suspicions” under the protection of the Franco regime’s Social Dangerous Law. “Once they prevented us from going to the bathroom, we had to urinate in the cell and they made us clean it with our own skirts,” says Dona.
“I was wearing a watch that my godfather had given me and the police assumed it was stolen and accused us of stealing without having done so,” explains Dona. “Many times they blamed us for having stolen without having stolen anything, it was an excuse,” adds Marcela. “When we got to jail, they held us for seventy-two hours and often forced us to sleep with them.“, the historical trans activist has told many times. Marcela admits, without shame, that she sold hashish to survive,” to be able to get on a bus and take money home, we had no money, they didn’t hire us, they didn’t want us, “she laments .
Dona charged between two hundred and five hundred pesetas to get into a car with a man. “We always had problems, some came disgusting, stinking, if you told them something they hit you or threw the car on you for not wanting to go with them, that happened every moment,” says Dona. “One day at three in the morning on Tres de Mayo street, he accelerated with me inside the car, I pulled the handbrake and jumped out of the car while it was moving., and like those many, “he adds.” Uncles who came drunk in the car and emptied whole fire extinguishers on us and we defended ourselves by throwing stones, “they have told in the special Today for Today of Pride from the Cabildo de Tenerife sponsored by the Council of Diversity.
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