Transgender women near Rome pray for Pope Francis, celebrate his outreach

TORVAIANICA, Italy (AP) — Moira Camila Garnica and a group of fellow migrant transgender women have been gathering at their parish church to pray for Pope Francis as he continues to battle pneumonia in a Rome hospital, about an hour away from this modest seaside town.

Many grew up Catholic in Argentina like Francis, and their prayers encompass gratitude for his outreach – several met him in person – as well as hope that the door he opened toward a doubly marginalized community will not be shut in the future.

“The biggest fear is that you never know how things will be in the future, should he no longer lead the church, that it might go backwards,” said Garnica, 47. “We hope that the church will continue with this empathy, continue to be open to everyone, continue to help, because sometimes one person can take a big step forward and then others take three steps back.”

Garnica and several other Latin American women, most sex workers who have been in Italy for a couple of decades, gathered for evening Mass in late February at the Blessed Immaculate Virgin Church. It was here they found food, medicine and basic financial assistance when  Italy’s strict COVID-19 lockdown rendered them unable to work, isolated and destitute.

The parish priest, the Rev. Andrea Conocchia, invited them to write letters to Francis outlining their needs. The Vatican’s almoner office not only provided money but brought a few dozen of them to the Vatican for vaccines. Years later, some were invited to a lunch for the poor with the pope.

“In this Covid period, it was important that Pope Francis got inside the mind of transgender women, in the mind of the human beings that we are, and started to treat us like human beings, and that I think is the moment when faith or Christianity could embrace us,” said Carla Segovia.

The 48-year-old woman, of Indigenous Bolivian descent, left her native Argentina as a college student during its financial crisis more than 20 years ago. She has been working as a prostitute since she started to pay for her gender surgeries as a youth, and calls the violence and discrimination she has faced a tough test of “your potential to survive.”

Now that Francis is ill, she said she wants to “transmit to him our strength, the same thing that he brought to us in the difficult time of the pandemic. We want to inoculate him with this strength that is so crucial – the fact that you need to fight for your life.”

Gender transition is a  controversial issue in many countries including the United States, where Catholic bishops reject it, and  immigration is also roiling politics  on both sides of the Atlantic. But Francis has made inclusion a hallmark of his papacy; specifically, the Vatican has stated it’s permissible, under certain circumstances,  for trans people to be baptized as Catholics  and serve as godparents.

Segovia and other women in their community were involved in the church as children but later felt their identity and work pushed them away – until they came to the Torvaianica parish’s food distribution site, during the pandemic lockdown.

“We Latin Americans are very Catholic, but being trans, many doors close, and people walk away from us, and we walk away too,” Garnica said. “The word-of-mouth was that this church welcomed you, helped you, and I came to ask for help because I felt so alone.”

So did Minerva, a Peruvian 54-year-old who asked only her professional name be used, her voice shaking with emotion as she recounted how the experience changed her life in town.

“We had no work, we had no money to buy food. A friend through word of mouth told me, go to the parish and knock, ask for Father Andrea. I came, I knocked, and like never before he opened his arms, he provided a support so big that still today he’s helping us,” Minerva said.

“He opened for us so many doors. At the beginning even here people didn’t pay attention to us. Now, when they see us, they greet us.”

For the Rev. Conocchia, helping this group of women is perfectly in line with the model of an open church reaching out to the margins that Francis has promoted, as well as the pope’s famous “ who am I to judge”  approach to LGBTQ+ issues.

“We put the poor back at the center, we put people back at the center, and that’s the Gospel,” Conocchia said. “What matters to me is a person, a person’s life and their story … a person is never what they do.”

He said the Vatican’s more open attitude, as well as its concrete welcome for this group of women, can help abolish prejudices that religious people hold – since it’s possible the women’s clients might include people who attend Mass, he wryly noted.

For the women, who often are rejected by their own families, it’s a moment of grace that went straight to the heart.

“A trans girl would have never imagined in her life that she could see the pope receive her, welcome her, and help her,” Garnica said. “Already here people mistreat you for being Latin American, imagine Latin America and trans. … But thanks to Father Andrea, people understood that we also have a heart, we also can contribute, we need the church, too.”

Minerva was a First Communion catechist in her parish in Peru, until she said she was kicked out for her identity. In the Torvaianica sacristy, under a picture of Francis, she practiced singing a Spanish-language version of “Amazing Grace” in hopes of joining the local choir. One verse, that she likes to sing to Mary, is about coming out of the shadows and into the light.

“I am church – not part of the church, I am church because each one of us is church,” she said.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

From left to right: Transgenders Camila Romero, Minerva, and Carla Segovia talk in the sacristy of the Beata Vergine Immacolata parish church in Torvaianica, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Transgenders Carla Segovia, left, and Minerva sit inside Beata Vergine Immacolata parish church in Torvaianica, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

FILE- Priest Andrea Conocchia, right, with members of a group of transgender women he accompanied at a lunch for the poor with Pope Francis, in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Sunday, Nov. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

Priest Andrea Conocchia in the sacristy of the Beata Vergine Immacolata parish church in Torvaianica, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

FILE - Priest Andrea Conocchia, third from left, speaks with transgender women, from left, Andrea Paola Torres Lopez from Colombia, also known as Consuelo, Claudia Vittoria Salas from Argentina and Carla Segovia from Argentina as they sit in the Beata Vergine Immacolata parish church in Torvaianica, Italy, Thursday, Nov. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)

Transgender Moira Camila Garnica poses for a portrait outside the Beata Vergine Immacolata parish church in Torvaianica, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.

Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.

Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”

Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.

“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”

He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”

Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.

More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.

Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.

In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.

Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”

Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.

“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.

The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)