Ruth Lijtmaer, Ph.D. presented as part of a panel:  Where is Our Humanity? Three Latina women psychoanalysts discuss dehumanization, gender and immigration. 
From different geographical locations, one presenter in the United States addressed how dehumanization takes place (Ruth Lijtmaer); the second presenter living on the border of Mexico and the United States (Tijuana-San Diego) as a “Trans-border” therapist (Adriana Cuenca-Carrara) discussed dehumanization of migrant women; and the third presenter living in Mexico City (Anne Marie Maxwell) addressed gender violence.
 
They were concerned about the continuous threats of the loss of women's rights, the loss of democracy, a virus that does not disappear, climate change, human rights violations and the treatment of people of color, "the other", and immigrants, and are questioning how dehumanization is sustained by power.  The dehumanization of immigrants opens the door to cruelty and violence. Women are also dehumanized by being objectified. When men objectify women they perceive them as things, rather than human beings, as desirable flesh rather than human subjects.  From a psychoanalytically informed perspective presenters aim to expand our cultural sensitivity in order to improve our cultural competence in clinical work.