Alejandra, a 54-year-old trans woman, was murdered in Buenos Aires.

By Ivana Romero Photo: Facebook La Rosa Naranja Alejandra Salazar Villa, a 54-year-old trans woman, was found dead yesterday in her apartment in the Once neighborhood (Buenos Aires City), with a plastic bag over her head. It is presumed she was asphyxiated. Judicial sources with access to the case confirmed that her death occurred several days earlier…

December 15, 2020

By Ivana Romero

Photo: Facebook La Rosa Naranja

Alejandra Salazar Villa, a 54-year-old transgender woman, was found dead yesterday in her apartment in the Once neighborhood of Buenos Aires, with a plastic bag over her head. It is presumed she was asphyxiated. Judicial sources with access to the case confirmed that her death occurred several days before she was found. Although there were no signs of forced entry, the apartment was ransacked, so in addition to the homicide, investigators are looking into whether a robbery occurred. The investigation is being handled by Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor's Office No. 35, which has ordered forensic examinations and declined to provide further details to the media.

Alejandra was 54 years old, born in Peru, and had moved to Buenos Aires several years ago. She lived alone in an apartment building on Corrientes Avenue at number 2200. Yesterday, 911 emergency personnel went there after neighbors reported strange smells in the hallway. Once at the scene, police from Precinct 3 confirmed that the body was in an advanced state of decomposition. This leads them to suspect that the murder was not recent.

Like many trans women, Alejandra worked as a prostitute to survive. “Her death adds to so many others that remain absent from the public agenda,” denounced Marcela Tobaldi, leader of the civil association La Rosa Naranja, a Buenos Aires-based organization that fights against the structural discrimination suffered by the trans community. “Although we are very afraid, prostitution is the only possible way out given the lack of employment, education, and healthcare. And so we fall into the hands of madmen, of people with great malice. These are hate crimes. Trans people continue to be annihilated,” Tobaldi added.

La Rosa Naranja documents that in 2020 there were 104 deaths among trans women and one trans man in Argentina. Most of them did not die violently but rather from what they classify as “social transvesticide/transfemicide.” That is, the lack of access to basic rights and structural violence that ultimately leads to early and preventable deaths.

So far this year in Argentina, this agency has reported at least six homicides of transgender people: two in the province of Tucumán . All of them were sex workers or involved in prostitution. And two of them were migrants born in Peru, like Alejandra.

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