Being able to name you is being able to be. Govinda Martínez is clear about it. He sits smiling in a corner of a restaurant with many dark tables and chairs, and at 15 years old, his words radiate security. Behind his glasses and dark hair, he weaves together a speech that seems built with the solidity of well-reflected opinions. Despite the slaps of an abusive and cruel society towards people of sexual diversity, he moves forward strongly, pushed by a family that supports him unconditionally. A mother, a father and four brothers who are his safe place.
“If they recognize me as trans, I feel like they associate me with having to go from my biological sex to the opposite, and I don’t want to. I like to be seen as just one more. I would have liked to be called by my name to be one more,” she says. It refers to life in general. And also, more specifically, to his school days. During the time he spent in a public high school in Rosarito, his municipality, in the Mexican state of Baja California, in the northwest of the country, a beach town, with a working population, surfers, bars, some nightclubs, and at times quite a few American tourists, that cross from the border in California.
At school, the prefect told me that I couldn’t wear pants and started asking me about my period. I don’t think she should have asked me that.
Govinda Martinez
That school stage was not easy for Govinda, the name that appears in the novel Siddartha, by Herman Hesse, and which he chose because it seemed neutral: it seems feminine, but it was worn by a male character. He entered second grade, in the last quarter, due to covid-19, because then classes were done from home. But he couldn’t finish the first quarter of third year. The environment was too hostile. Brisa Ríos, his mother, sitting next to him in a quiet corner of this restaurant in Playas de Rosarito, says: “I don’t want to continue exposing him to more situations. Already having his birth certificate with the name changed, he will be able to enter school as who he is.”
His previous name still appears on the birth certificate, but at school he asked for it to be changed on the lists. Or at least they called him only by his last name. Not all teachers paid attention. “The first classes, they said my previous name. Sometimes I would just sit there, saying nothing, so they could cross me out. Or I would go in front and have to tell the teacher, and everyone would look at me. So my classmates’ first impression was of someone with a name that didn’t belong. And even so, I had to start the course later so that the teachers could receive training,” he laments. He also asked to be able to go to the boys’ bathroom and wear the male uniform. “I had to go to the management bathroom, and about the uniform, the prefect told me that she couldn’t wear pants and started asking me about my period. I don’t think she should have asked me that,” she says.
The difficulties did not come only from that issue. Adolescence is the time of wanting to belong and sometimes suffering a lot of loneliness. Sometimes Martínez felt bad between classes or inside them. He would get nervous, he would cry, his head would hurt, he would feel nauseous… The teachers would call his parents to go look for him. They worked quite far away, but they always arrived as soon as possible, even if they had to spend hours stuck in traffic between Tijuana and Rosarito. “They related everything to that: it’s not that he doesn’t accept himself, maybe he’s regretting it, don’t pay attention to him anymore, he just wants to get attention,” remembers Ríos.
The report Five years of #transchildhood 2018-2023, published in January by Association for Transgender Children, explains that of the families they serve, 84% claim that the staff at their educational centers “does not have sufficient information on sex-gender diversity”; and 57% had impediments in the “gender identity recognition processes at school.”
That is why it is so important for trans children and adolescents to be able to change their name on the birth certificate. Govinda Martínez’s mother is frustrated: “It bothers me to see his previous name. I feel like they are humiliating him. “It is not what he is, it is not what represents him.” But in this country, to achieve that change, many battles are still having to be fought.
![Govinda Martínez playing on the grass with his pet 'Sullivan'.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/Z4GPNRCGBVGH7FFZQWK2KX6JXE.jpg?auth=334f69d7f55dd3ee4ea5828e8e4a522725c056bd98fb59c8e6df69c2a1e6007b&width=414)
A legal labyrinth
Mexico is made up of 32 States, each with its own civil code. All of them must abide by what the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) dictates, but since they are sovereign, in this case, the SCJN has to invalidate norms State by State to guarantee the right to change the name in the minutes of birth of trans children. Once invalidated, States have to change their civil code to adapt it to what the Supreme Court requests. Many cumbersome steps that sometimes get stuck.
These sentences are usually based on respect for human rights and the Constitution. As one of them describes, of 2017, people have the right to define their sexual and gender identity, since “the data that appears in the records, as well as in the identity documents, correspond to the definition they have of themselves”, because they must be guaranteed “the free development of personality, the right to privacy, recognition of legal personality and the right to a name.” Meritxell Calderón, a lawyer specializing in human rights, completes it with a key idea: “The State is a social structure that is there to guarantee human rights, if not, it has no meaning. It has to guarantee that you can carry out these procedures, not limit them.”
According to the report of the Association for Transgender Childhood, In 21 Mexican States it is now possible to go to the Civil Registry and make the name change. But only in five are minors allowed: Sinaloa, Jalisco and the Mexican consulates in the world can carry out the procedure without age limit and Oaxaca, Mexico City and Morelos allow it, but for those over 12 years of age. In Jalisco and Mexico City can also be done without the “mandatory presence of two parents.” It is very important, because as Teresa Díaz, the activist who has been accompanying Govinda Martínez and her family throughout this process, explains, there are many people who do not have the support of their parents. For this reason, she asks that an institution be created to help these people who have not yet reached the age of majority, so that they can access their right.
![Portrait of Govinda Martínez, 15 years old, next to her house in Rosarito (Baja California, Mexico).](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/WPBT3MXBUNEP5FZWMCMV6GEICM.jpg?auth=8763d5acd1ee89b9930c30c359781daa0112eab4d77e351be334bd5a41541f32&width=414)
Trapped in bureaucratic limbo
In June 2023, the Supreme Court issued rulings along the same lines for Sonora, Baja California Sur, and Baja California, where Govinda lives. These three States, within a year, must modify their laws to adapt them to what the SCJN requests, but it is not being easy.
Martínez, his family and Díaz, who is taking all the steps and who was one of the promoters of that sentence, have been trapped in that limbo. Together with other groups, she presented an unconstitutionality action before the National Human Rights Commission so that it, in turn, could take it to the Supreme Court and rule on the alleged violations in Baja California. Afterwards, they collected 800 signatures to present a bill for trans children. Along with that, they had the case of Govinda Martínez, which proved the need for the law. The perfect combo for the change.
In parallel, approximately a year ago they began the procedures so that Govinda’s name could appear in their official documents, based on the non-discrimination promoted by the Mexican Constitution and respect for human rights in several international conventions. They went to the Civil Registry of Playas de Rosarito and requested the change. The first time they denied it, arguing that it was not legal because she had to “be at least 18 years old.” A few months after the June 2023 ruling of the Supreme Court for Baja California, Díaz says that he returned with Martínez and her parents to the Civil Registry. The person who assisted them, says the activist, did not even know about the recent SCJN ruling. When the activist showed him the sentence, the official accepted the request, but on December 30, the Civil Registry again declared the rectification inadmissible, because the Civil Code of Baja California had not yet been modified to adapt to what was established by the SCJN. . Although according to Díaz, they were not notified until March 7.
The activist has gone to higher authorities to file complaints and demand rights. To places like the Human Rights Commission, but they still haven’t managed to get out of that labyrinth.
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