About
TransLatinx Resilience against COVID-19 documents how the pandemic has impacted transgender and gender nonconforming Latinx immigrants in Queens. For the past year, since the tragic passing of TransLatina activist and icon Lorena Borjas due to COVID-19-related illness, photographer Joana Toro has been documenting the TransLatinx community in Queens. This series focuses on the work of Colectivo Intercultural TRANSgrediendo, an organization founded by Borjas in 2015. For over 26 years, Borjas was on the frontlines—fighting for the trans immigrant community in Jackson Heights—to survive and navigate the seemingly insurmountable challenges of ongoing discrimination in employment, homelessness, hate crimes, and poverty. These photographs celebrate the beauty and resilience of a community which has been most severely impacted by loss of life and livelihood caused by the pandemic. The already precarious economic and social position of these women has been aggravated by COVID-19, considering that many of them are beauticians, club performers, or sex workers—professions that have been entirely or partially paralyzed due to the pandemic. The impact of the virus on the TransLatinx community in Queens, New York is under-reported.
