The last name of the parent who abused her was removed

What's your name?

The easiest question in any interview is the one with the most difficult answer in the case of Josefina. So far, up to Josefina, it seems easy. That's his name. And then it is called Ivalu, which is the name of a girl inspired by the book The Land of Long Shadows, by Hans Ruesch, which takes place in Siberia, among Eskimos threatened by conquests and women threatened by forced marriages and narrated gender violence. like rituals among the intemperance of the cold.

Her mother, María Julia, was inspired by that reading to name her. And before the book, Ivalu, a common name for girls in Greenland that means "thread", "fiber", "sindon", "ligament" and is the material used by the Inuit for their hunting bows. This thread is also the one that leads Josefina's fight to an arc that expands her personal fight -which is more personal and political than her own identity- to a battle won that can function as a precedent for other cases of abused girls, victims of violence against gender, on the part of their parents, and who do not want to carry the paternal surname so as not to repeat a name that does not mark them with fire in each debit card signature, immigration or school exam, precisely because they want to stand out.

But, in Argentina, if you want to remove the paternal surname, you have to give an explanation before the Justice. And, in most cases, the abuses do not have a judicial sentence that demonstrates them due to judicial inaction, due to the fact that the cases are time-barred, due to the corruption or misogyny of prosecutors and judges, or because a formal complaint was never filed. In this sense, Josefina's case does not end in her own name, but can open a range that –beyond punitiveness- does open the possibility of leaving the place of victim and renaming herself in a bastard but not helpless merriment.

Josefina Suils is called Josefina Suils. And that's the news. Josefina managed to remove her father's surname from her identity. And now she is called like the names her mother gave her and her maternal last name, without bearing what she no longer has to carry as a conviction against her and not against someone who did not have a conviction in an accusation that ended with a statute of limitations.

She was born on June 23, 1985. But she was born again on April 13, 2016, at age 21, after almost two decades of struggle, when a ruling allowed her to rename herself after a long struggle to stand out of the violence that marked her. And choose her own name and her own path.

-For me it was a burden. She didn't want to be socially recognized as his daughter. I was very ashamed. I didn't want to have children so they wouldn't carry that last name. The last name of someone who had assaulted me and marked my life in a way that cannot be erased did not represent me,” she tells Las12, from a bar in Comodoro Rivadavia, Chubut.

In a city where the cold is also part of the shelter, where the search for warmth sometimes locks in and going out is a form of freedom, where the streets are walked uphill and the chocolate is named after the wind and the sea is She stares at a view that does not have a postcard but does have a horizon, she also feels that her life now has a horizon marked by her fight so as not to be conditioned by a footstep that she did not choose and that she needed to get rid of.

On July 23, 2016, the public defender Marcelo Flavio Gaeta, in charge of the Public Defender's Office 2, of the City of Buenos Aires, sent the documents to the director of the Civil Registry of Comodoro Rivadavia to register her as Josefina Suils, by order of the National Civil Court of First Instance No. 83, in charge of the surrogate judge Gustavo Eduardo Noya.

-I took several backpacks. First, when I recounted the abuse. And, later, when I was able to change my last name –he stands out with an unfailing conviction and the need to not just keep his name on the tip of his tongue, but rather that it be the tip for a more comprehensive change of another way of calling himself and remove the patriarchal weight -more than ever- from what is not decided or approved. "Actually they only had to delete the last name," he highlights about how easy the process was. But that blocked her, for example, from receiving a degree in Genetics. "He did not want to receive me and that the title had that last name," he says. Now it's your turn to defend your thesis. Meanwhile, once he had his document, he changed all his roles: at the bank, in high school, at the university, everywhere. It's already her.

In Argentina, the fight for identity is a backbone, for the struggle of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, for human rights and for the right to gender identity. What does it mean to you that your identity does not have to be linked to sexual abuse at a time when feminisms are fighting to stop abuse?

-For me it is a way of empowering myself. I supported the Gender Identity Law. At that time I was dating girls and it seemed to me that there was no point in someone not feeling well. It is important that one is called with the identity that feels or is perceived. And that it could not be that my identity has to be defined by my biological link. For society, the last name is defined by the filial link with a family group.

How did your last name make you feel?

-I felt very ashamed and that it was a punishment. They never put him in jail and they didn't let me get my last name either. If I decided to perpetuate my bloodline, I would have to carry that last name. It seemed unfair to me.

Were you relieved that they allowed you to remove your father's last name from your ID card?

-When they told me I gave a giant scream. My husband got scared. He came running and I told him "It's all over, they told me yes". I thought we were going to have to appeal and that it was going to be very long. It was very liberating when I went with the document to the Civil Registry and presented it; They took my photo again to make my ID and passport. It was amazing really.

Was it starting over?

-Yes, from that moment I have two birthdays. That day I receive greetings from the people who were close to me.

Why was that change so important?

-I was abused by my father from the age of three to ten. At eleven years old I talked to my mom. He no longer lived in the city. I had come out as a flag bearer and he was going to come for that act. I didn't want him to come back. At that time I already knew that women could get upset and that this had to do with getting pregnant and I was afraid.

Were you aware of that fear?

-Yes, I was afraid. And I was afraid to tell it as it happens to all the victims. He told me not to tell anyone. He had a lot of violent authority. Once I ate a fruit with a bug, when I was five years old, I started screaming and crying and it hit me. He was a person who intimidated you. When one grows and develops as a child, there are things that one naturalizes and does not experience them as you see them as an adult. He was separated from my mom since he was five years old. But he came to our house when he saw us again. When I was nine years old, I realized that I was not well and I wanted to stop that situation but I did not know how. But at eleven years old I thought I could get pregnant and I didn't know what I was going to do. I went to talk to my mom and, luckily, she believed me and didn't hesitate for a minute. She never noticed because my mom worked at YPF (she was always the breadwinner of the house) and he was at home. We went to make the complaint in September 1997.

What happened to the complaint?

-We filed the complaint in Comodoro Rivadavia. A doctor and a psychologist saw me. And they never called us again. They asked me a couple of questions and we were dismissed. My mother was never a complainant because she was never informed. She was a woman who was alone, who worked all day and had no idea, nor did she have many resources.

Protector mothers who denounce always face obstacles...

-Yes, it is a very difficult road. And when I was 16 years old, the police came at half past twelve to give us a summons. I went to testify and they asked me directed questions without letting me tell what had happened. The secretary asked the lawyer, in front of me, about where I wanted to go. I realized that it was going to come to nothing because they wouldn't let me say what I remembered about the abuse. My statement ended up being distorted. And the cause ended up prescribing. On top of that, my mother and my brothers were never given parental authority. For a long time I felt afraid and had no spiritual strength.

The criminal offense is prescribed. But beyond the sentence is the possibility of taking the cause of identity. Why did you follow that path?

-I had my mother's last name and his, but I only used my mother's because I didn't want to be recognized by that last name and for being his daughter with what it meant in my life. I spent a year meeting people and they only discouraged me. I called the Ministry of Justice to see which office I could go to and a skinny guy answered me and told me to do an escrache on Facebook, which was the only thing I could do. And I told him that the last thing I wanted was to meet that person or that he could find me and that my Facebook never had my name. I lived with a persecution with the sensation of a defenseless monster behind me because whoever had to take care of you did not take care of me and whoever had to defend me (justice) did not defend me.

What is the transgression of bastard pride?

I once told a man about it and he said “How strange, with so many looking to be recognized”. And I told him yes, I wish he had never met me. It is questioning the patriarchy. I defended my right to be recognized as my mother's daughter. She is the one who sheltered me, fed me and hugged me when she found out everything I had experienced.

Would you like the path of an identity free of violence to be easier for other daughters of abuse victims?

-Now that there is jurisprudence, there should be an easier way to not receive more “no”. The judicial system functions poorly, laws are poorly implemented and not enforced. Maybe you have to make a law or something simpler. And let them know that there are just reasons for identity. It cannot be left to the discretion of the judges. You don't have to be carrying the last name of your rapist, your mother's murderer, your beater or the abuser. And, like it or not, people are defined by their last names. Also, if you take off that backpack, you feel better. And they can't stop you from feeling better when you've already experienced bad things.