By Georgina González
Photos: GG/Archive Presents

This atypical year, marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, brought inequalities to the forefront and, in some cases, exacerbated them, as happened with the LGBT+ community in Mexico. During this pandemic year, members of these communities were not only affected by the lack of employment, healthcare, and access to justice, but they also became victims of various forms of violence. 

"Domestic and online violence has never been so prevalent"

For Irene Valdivia, coordinator of the Michoacán Network of Trans People, violence intensified this year, particularly on social media. “It’s not that there isn’t physical violence, but perhaps it wasn’t as noticeable as in other years. But I think that domestic and online violence has never been so pervasive. In those dimensions, I believe the violence surpassed last year,” she says. On social media, some of this violence was perpetrated by exclusionary trans feminists.

For her, as various organizations have been saying, the pandemic confirmed that LGBT populations are the most vulnerable, particularly trans women sex workers. “The pandemic revealed this statistical result about who is most vulnerable, who among all the acronyms could die younger. I think the reasons became very clear, for example, with what is happening with housing and the right to formal employment.” 

“For me, the most important thing this year is that we turned our attention to what is happening with trans children and adolescents. Jalisco’s success is historic; it’s the most important achievement for the trans community in a long time. And the way we managed to organize ourselves despite everything that was happening was very important. We returned to street activism, organizing ourselves in communities outside of blood ties,” she concluded in an interview with Presentes.

The impacts of the pandemic on LGBT+ communities

Hate crimes increased

The 2020 report from the National Observatory of Hate Crimes Against LGBT People indicates that during the pandemic and under the "alleged lockdown measures," crimes against LGBT people have increased, especially in Veracruz, Michoacán, and Chihuahua. And that, despite warnings and recommendations, public institutions "have provided little to no response." 

Transgender sex workers among the most affected 

One of the consequences of this emergency was the closure of hotels. This left many trans women who engage in sex work homeless and without a place to work, in most cases due to a lack of other job opportunities and as a means of survival. If survival was already difficult for them, the pandemic made it even more precarious.

More domestic violence in isolation 

During lockdown, domestic violence increased in many homes across the country. This forced affected teenagers and young adults to seek refuge. 

Safe havens for LGBT+people fleeing violence

Presentes documented and spoke with residents of the four shelters that opened their doors in Mexico City to provide safe spaces to anyone who needed them.

Meanwhile, the LGBT+ migrant population faced new obstacles along their journey. Presentes recounted how they sought refuge in shelters in Tijuana, respecting protocols and taking extra precautions.

HIV+ neglect and lack of medication

People living with HIV have been reporting that they faced neglect from the public health system and a shortage of antiretroviral medications that has been occurring in different states of the country since 2019. 

Solidarity networks of LGBT+ activism 

Despite all the obstacles posed by the pandemic, LGBT activists persevered in their fight. In addition to advocating for guaranteed rights, they have developed collective resources to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 emergency through initiatives such as opening shelters, community kitchens, and organizing food and economic fundraisers. 

Brakes on the expansion of rights

Conservative public officials this year stalled legislative processes aimed at guaranteeing the human rights of LGBT people. The PES, the evangelical and conservative political party allied with the president of Mexico, sought to veto comprehensive sex education content in at least seven states. 

At least 43 LGBT+ people murdered and 11 missing 

The Mexican state does not collect data on the violence faced by LGBT people. The figures that are available are thanks to coordinated efforts between organizations and collectives. One of these is the National Observatory of Hate Crimes against LGBT People. This observatory only records crimes in 10 of the country's 32 states.

• According to the Observatory, between January and November 2020, 43 LGBT people were murdered and 11 are missing in Mexico. 

• Transgender women and women with female gender expression are the most vulnerable, representing 50% of all murders. Meanwhile, 38% of the crimes were against gay men, 8% against lesbians, and 4% against transgender men. 

During the presentation of the ONCO-LGBT report, activist Claudia Sanz noted that although the deadline for reporting was November, Vicenta Loris, a human rights defender and trans woman from Iguala, Guerrero, was murdered on December 9. Additionally, on December 1, 2020, Sherlyn Villarreal, another trans woman, was murdered in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca. 

Veracruz, the most dangerous state

In Veracruz alone, 21 people from the LGBTQ+ community were murdered in 2020. For the sixth consecutive year, it is the most dangerous state to be LGBT in Mexico. 

In January, Karina and María Susana, two lesbian women, were murdered in cold blood. The couple was attacked by an unknown assailant in Papantla, Veracruz. However, neighbors indicated that Susana's ex-husband displayed jealousy and hatred toward their relationship.

Eduardo Hohenstein, a 39-year-old gay man, was stabbed multiple times in the chest and had his throat slashed. His father found him murdered and wrapped in a sheet in Córdoba, Veracruz, on March 2.

In August, Brandy Huerta was murdered along with her mother in Puente Nacional, Veracruz. This crime occurred during a week in which two other transgender women were murdered: on August 19, Julie Torres was killed in her home in Guadalajara, Jalisco. The following day, 23-year-old Sam Rosales was run over and killed in Atlixco, Puebla. 

On October 4, Erick Deseano, a 36-year-old trans man who worked harvesting pineapples, was brutally murdered in Ciudad Isla, Veracruz. That same day, a few kilometers away, 35-year-old Gretell Ceballos was shot to death outside her home in Minatitlán. 

At the end of August, activist Jazz Bustamante began a hunger strike in response to five murders that occurred in two weeks across four states. Her main demand was that the Veracruz State Attorney General's Office implement a protocol to classify hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity, as outlined in the State Penal Code, and that these crimes be investigated with a human rights and gender perspective.

The activist noted in this article for Presentes that the Prosecutor's Office almost never makes statements about these cases or reports on progress in the investigations. No information is released, the perpetrators are not apprehended, and the sexual orientation and gender identity of the victims are not respected.

 

 

Missing LGBT+ people

In 2020, the National Observatory of Crimes against LGBT people recorded the disappearance of at least 11 people. 

For the past 14 years, Mexico has lived in a context of organized violence, a term that is proposed in order not to exempt the responsibility and complicity of the State in a security strategy that was announced in 2006 as the “war on drugs”. 

Since then, the presence of the military in the streets, the territorial disputes between drug cartels, the diversification of illicit activities, and the participation of the Mexican State have caused a crisis of human rights violations. 

From 2006 to the present, more than 77,000 people have gone missing, according to official figures. However, it is impossible to know how many of them may be LGBT individuals, as there are no official statistics on crimes against people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. 

The Center for Support of Trans Identities also keeps a record of disappearances. According to their figures, 35 LGBT people are missing, and of these, 21 are trans women. 

This year, Presentes was able to report on the disappearance of Teresa Cox and Nora Pacheco, two lesbian women from Tijuana, Baja California. Their whereabouts have been unknown since the early morning of August 25, 2020.

In addition, for the first time the UN Committee against Enforced Disappearances spoke out about the disappearance of two trans women and urged Mexican authorities to begin the search for Karla García Duarte and Kenia Duarte Pérez, who have been missing since September 18.

During the presentation of the ONCO-LGBT report, activist Claudia Sanz pointed out that most of the time the disappearances culminate "in the ultimate expression of hatred," murder. 

43 crimes and one arrest 

Of the 43 hate crimes against LGBT people recorded, only one resulted in charges against the alleged perpetrator. 

In September, various trans organizations in Chihuahua and the Office in Mexico of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights demanded that the State Prosecutor's Office investigate with a gender perspective and take into account the status of human rights defender and the identity of Mireya Rodríguez Lemus, who was murdered on August 30. 

On September 19, the Chihuahua State Prosecutor's Office identified Ivan Arturo GP as the alleged murderer of Mireya, and while investigations continue, he will face two years of preventive detention for the crime of aggravated homicide due to gender. 

This is the first legal case in Mexico where a trans woman's gender identity has been considered as evidence in a homicide case. However, most hate crimes against LGBT people go unpunished.  

The constant impunity

In Mexico, the probability of a crime being reported and solved is only 1.3%. According to the organization Impunity Zero, this figure is comprised of public data on the low effectiveness of prosecutors' offices and the number of crimes that go unreported (the dark figure of crime). 

While this data affects the Mexican population in general, impunity is exacerbated in vulnerable populations seeking access to justice. 

An example of this is the fight for justice led by Kenya Cuevas after the murder of her friend, Paola Buenrostro. Four years later, despite the statements and evidence presented, the former soldier who shot Paola was released by the authorities, and the Mexico City Attorney General's Office currently has no leads in the investigation. 

In Mexico, there are no official statistics on murders, attacks, and assaults against this population. The classification of hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity exists in only 13 of the country's 32 states, but there are no specific regulations for applying these grounds. Despite the existence of a National Protocol for Action for personnel in law enforcement agencies in cases involving sexual orientation or gender identity, it is not implemented. 

This lack of action by the justice system was denounced by activists in protests, hunger strikes, formal petitions, and working groups.

Furthermore, LGBT people face discrimination and prejudice from public officials in justice institutions, which hinders complaints and consequently creates a gap in data, types and characteristics of the violence perpetrated against them.

Given the lack of official records and the fact that the only data available is compiled by various civil organizations and collectives, it is difficult to determine whether 2020 surpassed 2019 (listed by Letra S as the most violent year of the last five years) in hate crimes against LGBT people.  

Gender identity, trans childhoods and adolescences

• Sonora and Quintana Roo passed gender identity laws. The vote in the Quintana Roo Congress was unprecedented, as it was unanimous. 

• Currently, 13 of the country's 32 states guarantee this right to transgender adults. 

• In 2020, Jalisco became the first Mexican state to guarantee the right to identity for transgender people, both adults and minors. This followed a decree approved by the local executive branch, which reformed the regulations of civil registries to require them to issue birth certificates recognizing the chosen name and gender identity of transgender people. After this achievement, in November, a group of 14 families from different parts of the country traveled to Jalisco to obtain their birth certificates. 

Oaxaca and Tlaxcala with same-sex marriage

After ten years of struggle, on November 3, 2020, Puebla achieved marriage equality by reforming its Civil Code so that the legal definition of marriage no longer states that it is only "between a man and a woman." In Tlaxcala, Mexico's smallest state, this right was also guaranteed on December 8. 

These achievements occurred despite resistance from conservative groups within the local legislative branch and the influence of the Catholic Church's discourse on public servants. 

• In 21 Mexican states, same-sex marriage is guaranteed through an administrative procedure.

Nothing to convert

On July 24, the Mexico City Congress approved reforms to the local Penal Code to criminalize so-called "conversion therapies." These are practices that aim to "correct" a person's sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

On October 20, the Congress of the State of Mexico also defined and prohibited this crime that violates the free development of personality and identity of individuals.

Senators Minerva Citlalli Hernández, Alejandra Lagunes, and Patricia Mercado are currently promoting a ban on "conversion therapies" through reforms to the Federal Penal Code. They seek to punish this practice with two to six years in prison and to have the General Health Law suspend healthcare professionals involved in them for one to three years.

Slopes and setbacks

Each of the 32 states that make up the country can legislate independently. Thus, the local legislature has the power to deny or guarantee rights.

In 2015, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) issued a ruling declaring unconstitutional the civil codes of states that prohibit same-sex marriage. Five years after the ruling, 11 states still do not guarantee this right. 

In July 2020, the Baja California state Congress rejecteda bill seeking to guarantee marriage equality. The second time, it fell two votes short of approval, a result celebrated by the National Front for the Family. 

The right to identity for transgender minors in Mexico City was a recurring issue throughout the year. However, on several occasions, representatives from the PAN, PRI, PRD, and PES parties refused to discuss and vote on a bill that had been approved more than a year prior. This bill aims to guarantee the right to identity for transgender children and adolescents in the city. 

On December 10, 2020, Representative Temístocles Villanueva protested, demanding that the bill be voted on and approved. He stated, “The discussion is being held hostage by a handful of far-right representatives who fear the majority and are preventing both discussion and a vote.” He added, “Discrimination and transphobia can occur through action or inaction. This Congress is transphobic by omission as long as this issue is not included on the agenda.” 

Furthermore, on December 11, the Congress of the State of Mexico approved the initiative for the recognition of the gender identity of transgender adults. Its vote in the plenary session is still pending. 

What might 2021 bring?

Feminist groups occupying the Puebla State Congress building include the approval of the gender identity law , also known as the Agnes Law, as part of their demands

This law is named after Agnes Torres, a trans woman and human rights defender who, before being murdered in 2012, sought to guarantee the right to gender identity in the state of Puebla. 

In dialogue sessions, members of parliament pledged to guarantee this right by February 2021. However, journalist Mely Arellano reported : “It remains unclear whether this means they will present a new initiative in February. Or whether the initiative presented by Representative Estefanía Rodríguez last June will be discussed in committee in February , or if it will instead go to the plenary session in February.”

In Oaxaca, efforts will be made to guarantee the right to gender identity for transgender people, both minors and adults. In October, Representative Magaly López proposed to the Congress that the local Civil Code be amended to recognize the gender identity of transgender people from the age of 12.

In addition, he presented an initiative to create a “State Database and Information Bank on Cases of Violence Against Trans People,” which is intended to be a digital tool with public information on crimes of violence against trans people with the objective of being able to implement public policies and legislative measures at the state and municipal level in favor of trans people in Oaxaca.