Cordoba: Family members attacked and burned a young trans woman

Victoria Renata Albornoz, 27, was attacked with a machete and burned with gasoline. The perpetrators were her sister and brother-in-law.

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October 22, 2020

By Alexis Oliva

Photos: Courtesy of the Trans Center of Córdoba

Victoria Renata Albornoz, 27, was attacked with a machete and burned with gasoline. The perpetrators were her sister and brother-in-law, in the town of Villa Santa Cruz del Lago, near the tourist city of Carlos Paz. Victoria is hospitalized at the Burn Institute, where she was initially admitted to intensive care with severe burns to her back, waist, and buttocks, as well as a wound to the back of her neck. Thanks to a slow improvement, she was moved to a regular ward in recent hours.

Juan Pablo Adolfo Re (48), an employee of the Villa Santa Cruz del Lago Municipality – already in custody – and Cintia Silvina Albornoz (36) – currently free – are accused of the assault and are being held at the disposal of Prosecutor Carlos Mazzuchi of the Villa Carlos Paz Prosecutor's Office No. 2. Upon learning of the incident, the municipal authorities stated: “We wish to express our complete condemnation of what happened, and we, as an institution, are making ourselves available to the investigative process being carried out by the Córdoba Provincial Police.”

The attack occurred on Tuesday around 2 p.m. in a public place, in the context of an argument about the use of a family home, where the victim was staying these days, and as a corollary to an escalation of situations of infra-family discrimination that he had been suffering.

Present at the time of the attack, a friend recounted that while Renata and her boyfriend were arguing with her sister on the sidewalk in front of the house, Juan Pablo Adolfo Re intervened, “doused her with gasoline, and set her girlfriend’s motorcycle on fire.” “In self-defense, she grabbed a shovel and hit him in the stomach. We didn’t see where the guy got a machete from, and he slashed Renata with it on the back of the neck. In his other hand, he had a jerrycan; he doused her with gasoline, and her sister lit a match and threw it at him,” the witness, whose identity is being withheld for her safety, recounted.

Initially assisted by her partner and a friend, Renata had to be transported by public ambulance 25 kilometers to the Burn Institute in Córdoba. There, some twenty activists from LGBTQ+ rights organizations, such as Putos Peronistas, Bisexuales Peronistas, and Córdoba Diversa, as well as members of the Association of Argentine Sex Workers (AMMAR) in Córdoba, and representatives of the Methodist Church, went to support her.

“We have joined together to raise our voices and fight for immediate justice and for the full force of the law to be brought to bear on transphobic criminals. Enough with hate crimes, enough with impunity, and justice for Renata,” the Emergency Committee of the Union of LGBTIQ+ Organizations in the face of Covid-19 stated in a press release. Meanwhile, the Córdoba branch of the Association of Transvestites, Transsexuals, and Transgender People of Argentina declared: “Her life is still in danger. We demand that the State and its officials take action.”

“This attack was premeditated. It had been brewing for some time, because they discriminated against her a lot, and she had already suffered homophobic and transphobic situations within her own family, to the point that this aggression by her own blood sister ended up happening. It seems like a horror novel. On top of having a life expectancy of 35 years, they violate us in this way. Enough with the hate and violence,” Valeria Olaviaga, a friend of Renata and a representative of the Trans Center of Córdoba, told Presentes .

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