your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
been trying to write a TL;DR about #PopeFrancis and his work and solidarity with tranwomen, especially sex workers, but there really isn’t much in English; so y’all have to deal with articles in Spanish.
so let’s get this clear: when he said the RCC only recognized two genders, he was being explicit about that historical fact. he wasn’t saying trans folks didn’t have a right to exist. on the contrary, his letters on how transfolks are welcomed as godmothers & godfathers are key… 🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
it’s in DO UNTO OTHERS that #PopeFrancis worked all his life. his catholicism lived in his doing unto others.
and it was from women that he learned this praxis, DURING THE WORST OF ARGENTINA’S DICTATORSHIP YEARS.
and it is thanks to Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo that we had a Papa Quico
❝ Quién fue Esther Ballestrino, la mujer que fue clave en la formación política del papa Francisco antes de ser desaparecida por la dictadura argentina
https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/c1mnr27mkvyo
…🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
y’all may not know there was a time #PopeFrancis wanted to be a biologist. it was during his youth years working as an assistant at a laboratory that he met Esther Ballesteros, the woman who he ended up looking up to as mentor.
he looked up to Ballestero not only thru those formative years but later on as a priest & bishop, after she co-founded Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo and she herself was tortured, disappeared and murdered as part of USA’s #OperationCondor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
…🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
BUT BUT SHE WAS A CISGENDER WOMAN you might think.
yet you wouldn't bat an eye if i told you that the first women disappeared by las dictaduras were not just transgender women but transgender women prostitutes. and not just transgender women prostitutes but BLACK, ORIGINARIA & NON-WHITE LOOKING transgender women prostitutes.
Black, Native & non-white-heteronormative presenting transgender women are the canaries in the fascist coal mines. ALWAYS.
…🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
why is his letter about trans godmothers and godfathers important?
BECAUSE TO BE A GODMOTHER AND GODFATHER YOU HAVE TO:
- BE BAPTIZED
- TAKE COMMUNION
- GO THRU CONFIRMATION
baptismal and confirmation are one-off catholic rites, but COMMUNION IS THE ON-GOING COMMITMENT BETWEEN THE CHURCH & HER CHILDREN.
so, if you know NOTHING about what it means to be a Catholic, you wouldn't understand the nuanced radicalism of Jorge Bergoglio as both a priest and as #PopeFrancis …🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
COMMUNION IS THE LIFE SOURCE OF CATHOLICISM
to deny communion is the worst kind of ostracism a Catholic can suffer. because the Church is saying, there is nothing you can do, no penance, nothing, that will make you worthy of communion.
THIS IS WHAT IS RADICAL ABOUT #PopeFrancis
in christian doctrine, there are 7 virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, faith, hope & charity. depending on your flavor of christianity, some are more emphasized than the others.
Papa Quico put CHARITY first …🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
CHARITY in catholic doctrine is *NOT* about tax-exempt statuses nor trickle-down economics.
on the contrary, the definition of CHARITY is at the core of the fight between Theology of Liberation and corporatist Catholicism.
Liberation theologists asked what was the point of JesusChrist if not for “do unto others” which is and always be about the empathy and compassion encapsulated by the concept of CHARITY?
so it is the charity of DO UNTO OTHERS that informs all other christian virtues …🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
it is because he was a street priest that when Andrea Conocchia, one of the Italian street priests #PopeFrancis had in his confidence, introduced him to a group of Latina trangender prostitutes during the pandemic close downs, that he had them and others sit at his lunch table on Wednesdays
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-04-26/the-trans-women-who-sat-with-pope-francis-he-told-me-not-to-lose-faith-because-we-are-all-equal-in-the-eyes-of-god.html
…🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
and this is where the influence of Esther Ballestero comes into place, and let’s fast forward to his papacy.
it is exactly because Jorge Bergoglio was a street priest that he came to know many transgender folks. when Sister Mónica Astorga, a rock star of the Catholic LGBTQI community in Argentina decided to leave the Church but not her work, Pope Francis did NOT excommunicate her and instead sent her a letter of solidarity
https://www.rionegro.com.ar/sociedad/la-monja-que-acompano-a-las-mujeres-trans-en-neuquen-no-recibio-el-apoyo-de-la-iglesia-pero-si-del-papa-francisco/
anything you need, he basically told her …🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
it is because he credits a woman with his political radicalization that he supported nuns like Geneviève Jeanningros, who not only has spent her life serving the LGBTQI but whose aunty was one of the thousands of nuns killed by the USA-backed dictaduras
and as i said in another thread, Pope Francis abolished nuncial secrecy for rapists and pedophiles in the Catholic Church.
the RCC refused to recognize rape of nuns & priests, so he abolished the privilege …🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
and it is because of all of this that, notwithstanding what he said last year about the gender binary, his impact as a “social justice warrior” for the #LGBTQI community, cannot be underestimated.
last year, the Supreme Court of #Argentina recognized the dictaduras targeted assassinstion of trans women as part of their genocidal war crimes.
❝ La Justicia argentina reconoce a personas trans como víctimas de delitos de lesa humanidad en un fallo histórico
https://elpais.com/argentina/2024-03-27/la-justicia-argentina-reconoce-a-personas-trans-como-victimas-de-delitos-de-lesa-humanidad-en-un-fallo-historico.html
…🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
as i said before,
https://mastodon.social/@blogdiva/114375252519201798
am speaking about the Catholic Church, the OG corporatist organization. they literally invented management by committee. RCC bureaucracy is legendary.
so i get why the Catholic LGBTQI community considers #PopeFrancis the most revolutionary pope ever:
❝ Pope Francis was a pastoral revolutionary for LGBTQ Catholics | National Catholic Reporter https://www.ncronline.org/news/pope-francis-was-pastoral-revolutionary-lgbtq-catholics
…🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
#PopeFrancis pastoral mission was, within the confines of his faith, as #antifa as it could get.
Jorge Bergoglio ―the one known as Pope Francis and whom i knick-named Papa Quico because his knickname would have been Papa Pancho but that’s what my family called my POS #ACAB white grandfather― was the first anti-capitalist, antifascist, anti-gringo Pope exactly because he knew, HE KNEW that USA’s number 1 export to América Latina is #fascism in the guise of propped up dictaduras …🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
THERE IS NO GOING BACK FOR THE CATHOLIC CHURCH; 90% of the conclave were appointed archbishops by Papa Quico and the worse thing that could have happened to Opus Dei is that they aren’t a secretive secessionist group anymore. they are now known for what they are: your sundry kakistocratic christofascist malcontents.
whomever comes after #PopeFrancis has big sneakers to fill. they will either continue breaking doctrinal ground by nuance, like Bergoglio; or say fuckit! and run with it. /🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
PS¹: TWO THINGS ABOUT #PopeFrancis HEADLINES
1. about the word PROSTITUTE: it’s very much a reappropriation of the word and a throwing back at people’s faces. trabajadores de sexo is the more appropriate term
2a. about the word TRAVESTÍ: in Latin America many LGBTQI include drag queens as the other T. you will see many organizations referring to personas de transgénero y travestís; because drag queens were also targeted and disappeared during las dictaduras:
https://agenciapresentes.org/2019/04/22/paso-cuando-las-travestis-chilenas-tomaron-las-calles-primera-vez/
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
PS²:
2b. when i was working on my PhD in Latin American Studies at NYU, one of my professors was one of the thousands of LGTBQI latinoamericanes granted political asylum exactly because of USA’s Operation Condor.
one of his friends was chilean LGBTQI artist & drag queen, Pedro Lemebel founding half of Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis. the work their collective did alongside Colectiva Lésbica Feminista Ayuquelén and others was instrumental in fighting Pinochetismo.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.12853055.6?seq=1
/🧵
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
OH!
PS³!
one of the biggest honors you can get as a Catholic is to walk along the casket of a pope to their resting place; BECAUSE THAT’S INCLUDED IN A POPE’S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
guess who #PopeFrancis named for that honor: the transgender women he met during the pandemic and who became his lunch buddies on Wednesdays. he also named convicts and other “street people” he had become friends with.
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