21 Feb 2023 Sallent, Barcelona (Spain) Suicide Iván Guadalupe Lima Fortete [photo: Direct Message]
Iván died after attempting suicide with his sister. Although she survived, Iván did not.
It is difficult to determine exactly what is the correct way to treat the death of Iván, the trans boy who threw himself from a balcony in Barcelona together with his twin sister, from the media. It is necessary to delve into the problems, try to put yourself in the place from which the different positions are enunciated (even when we find them unpleasant) and look at the events as part of a developing process.
The initial news about Iván's death did not mention his transition process. We simply knew the case as the death of the Argentine "twins" in Barcelona as a result of bullying received within the school environment. Little by little, we learned the details and dismantled that first conglomerate of "the twins" to realize that each one of the siblings experienced bullying differently. We found out that both were harassed for being Argentine and for not being fluent in Catalan.
The appearance of the letters left by Iván and his sister helped us to know that even the decision to commit suicide had nuances: Iván openly declared his weariness for the violence received and for the lack of horizons for his life, while Leila simply expressed that she wanted to accompany her sister (sic), even to the end.
In that letter Iván used feminine pronouns to refer to himself and so did his sister when mentioning him, however, over time he sweated that he had told his intimate circle of friends that he "felt like a boy" and wanted to be called Iván . In fact, it was learned that his schoolmates bothered him by calling him "Ivana" and calling him a "tomboy". Thus, we learned that the bullying was not only due to his migrant status, but also to his trans identity.
