Two LGBT activists were murdered in Guatemala

Gay activist Larry Stewart Lara and trans activist Hanss Acevedo were murdered a week apart.

January 15, 2020

By Pilar Salazar

Gay activist Larry Stewart Lara, 49, was killed while walking with his partner to lunch near his home, at the corner of 16th Street and 8th Avenue in Guatemala City. A week later, trans activist Hanss Acevedo was shot. Neither murder is being investigated as a hate crime.

On December 31, two men on a motorcycle robbed Lara of her cell phone and then shot her, according to a report from the Municipal Fire Department's 9th Station. According to the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (INACIF), she died from gunshot wounds on December 31. The murder is not being investigated as a hate crime because it is being treated as "common crime," according to the police.

Lara co-founded the organization Lambda in Guatemala, an association created in 2010 by former members of the community-based Proyecto Unidos . Currently, one of its main focuses is providing support to LGBTI people who are displaced or migrated, offering them a transitional space, transportation, and food.

“We would tell him our problems and he would see how he could help us; he always had that gift of being very helpful, very humane,” Estuardo Moscoso, a friend of 20 years, told Presentes.

Extorted by gangs

On January 9, Hanss Acevedo was murdered after refusing to comply with an extortion threat from gangs. The incident occurred at the intersection of 22nd Avenue and 8th Street in Zone 6 of Guatemala City. Hanss was a member of the Transformación and lived with his partner and his mother.

Alex Castillo, director of the Transformación collective, knew Acevedo and had been his friend for 25 years. He mentions that in situations like this, it is important to have laws protecting transgender people and their partners, highlighting the terrible experience Hanss's partner had when trying to make the necessary arrangements for his funeral, as they weren't even allowed to enter the Forensic Institute (INACIF) to identify the body.

“When it came to starting all the legal procedures and everything else (for the burial), she was a nobody (Acevedo's partner),” he said.

According to a report provided by Inacif to this media outlet, Acevedo died from gunshot wounds.

Fourteen days into 2020, and with the new authorities already in office in the country—for the first time, two gay men were elected: José Hernández (alternate deputy to Parlacen) and Aldo Dávila (Deputy to Congress)—three homicides of people from the LGBTIQ+ population have already been recorded, and civil society organizations have demonstrated, demanding that the State conduct a prompt investigation of the events and punish those responsible.

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