“The primary barrier to achieving health well-being for the trans and transvestite community is the pathologization of our corporalities”. Interview with Anastasia María Benavente on the right to health of trans people

Abstract

The health and well-being experiences of trans people have been insufficiently explored in occupational therapy. To address this issue from the situated and leading perspective of the community, we present an interview with Anastasia María Benavente – a researcher, educator, actress, performer, and activist within the trans-transvestite community. This text reviews legislative advancements and challenges surrounding gender identity laws in Chile, drawing comparisons with the Argentine experience. It outlines the structural violence faced by trans individuals and how this violence generates inequalities in access to work, health, and well-being, ultimately lowering their life expectancy compared to cisgender people. Additionally, it examines the barriers that the trans and transvestite community encounters in health care, emphasizing how insufficient gender-related education among health professionals perpetuates the pathologization of trans bodies. Finally, the interviewee discusses her doctoral research, highlighting the historical development of collective survival strategies and knowledge within the trans-transvestite community, calling for occupational therapy to adopt a critical stance on both structural inequalities and the agency of these communities.